The Camera is Ours

This insightful and truly wonderful 2-Disc DVD set offers rare glimpses into the work of Britain’s early female filmmakers with ten films made between 1935 and 1967, newly remastered in partnership with The Film Foundation. Although most leading documentarians in Britain today are women this wasn’t always the case, therefore being able to watch the work of some of yesteryear’s trailblazing directors makes this BFI release all the more exciting. That said, the ‘piece the résistance’ is a feature length documentary on the extraordinary life of screenwriter, filmmaker, feminist and socialist Jill Craigie.

With so much material on offer it is, as is so often the case, unfortunately impossible to discuss every single one of the works in detail due to reasons of space – therefore this reviewer can focus extensively only on some of these fascinating films. First up is Marion Grierson’s 21 min short ‘Beside the Seaside’ (1935) which depicts Brits indulging in one of their favourite pastimes: having a jolly good time by the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea although some of the entertainments on offer at the amusement park does not only come across outdated but will offend nowadays sensibilities what with blacked-up singers (Uncle Mack and his Minstrels) performing music hall ditties and jokes. Btw Marion Grierson, born in a mining village near Stirling, Scotland, was the sister of the older and possibly better known documentary filmmaker John Grierson.
Next up is ’Behind the Scenes’ (1938) by Evelyn Spice and this 16 min effort offers a marvellous glimpse behind the scenes in London’s Zoological Gardens although we begin at the London Docks where exotic beasts in cages are unloaded and driven in a van through the capital until the final destination has been reached. Although watching zoo keepers feeding the animals (and golly, talk about individual requirements) and even making friends with some of them it must be pointed out that some aspects may well enrage animal activists as we witness elephants being trained to balance on a drum or chirpy chimps being bundled into cabs to perform all sorts of tricks on TV. One might argue that in the case of elephants they would be safer at the zoo rather than being left in their natural habitat – only to be killed by ivory hunters, but there’s a fine balance to everything and not just standing on a drum to delight spectators. Of particular interest are the various types of foods required for all the different species.
Ruby Grierson (sister of Marion and John) was also to follow her siblings by jumping on the documentary bandwagon, her 10 min short ‘They Also Serve’ (1940) is an appreciation to the hardworking housewives of Britain. ‘4 And 20 Fit Girls’ (1940) by Mary Field follows a group of young women enjoying themselves in a fitness class in an attempt to temporarily leave the physical and psychological stress of WW2 at the front door. Muriel Box (here credited as Muriel Baker) invites us to a joyful afternoon at ‘The English Inn’ (1941) – a 10 min appreciation of idyllic country life where locals gather at the Inn for a good pint and conversations galore.

Brigid ‘Budge’ Cooper’s ‘Birth-Day’ (1945, 21min) is a joint effort between Data Film Productions, the Ministry of Information and the Department of Health for Scotland, addressing Scotland’s shockingly high mortality rate among infants due to poor and overcrowded housing, inadequate hygienic conditions, struggles with nourishing food and the husbands usually away on wartime service duties. We follow one of the young mothers (played by Molly Weir, best remembered for her role as Hazel the McWitch in the BBC series ‘Rentaghost’) and her own struggles. ‘Holmes for the People’ (1945, 22min) by Kay Mander chronicles the plight of five British working-class mothers up and down the country who have to make do with highly insufficient living conditions which make their daily domestic chores all the more difficult – calling for an urgent need for better housing in post-war Britain. On an equally downbeat yet important note are Jill Craigie’s ‘Children of the Ruins’ (1948) – a 10 min cinematic essay on the war’s forgotten children and Margaret Thomson’s ‘The Troubled Mind’ (1954, 21 min) on the subject of mental health.
However, the last documentary ‘Something Nice to Eat’ By Sarah Erulkar (1967, 20 min) features then top-model and David Bailey muse Jean Shrimpton in a perfectly designed modern kitchen while narrator David De Keyser is wetting our collective appetites by explaining why the French in particular have so much more imagination when it comes to cooking in general and cooking with ingredients the Brits (this was 1967, remember) shy away from, like garlic and herbs or cream and wine used for delicious sauces. Given the nation’s obsession with American-style junk food and rising obesity levels… not much seems to have changed since then. We salivate at mouth-watering dishes presented by John Addey and precise instructions on how to whip up the perfect light-as-air cheese soufflé or prepare other classical dishes such as Beef Bourguignon should break the barrier when it comes to dishing up meals from our Continental neighbours which are, let’s face it, usually tastier then the more bland English fare. We then follow the camera around various street markets where vendors offer all sorts of fruit ‘n’ veg (home-grown and otherwise) with De Keyser remarking that many British households are still rather unadventurous when it comes to using herbs and the like to maximum effect in the kitchen. Incidentally, the film was sponsored by the Gas Council – presumably back then people could still afford to cook with gas…

The Special Features on THE CAMERA IS OURS are comprised of a short Q&A with Sarah Erulkar from 2010, a brief yet intimate portrait of Kay Mander in her home in Dumfries, Scotland (shot by Barney Snow in 2000) and a 92 min long documentary by Lizzie Thynne called ‘Independent Miss Craigie’ about the extraordinary life of this trailblazing woman who not only worked as a director but also wrote the screenplays for the 1954 Gregory Peck comedy ‘The Million Pound Note’ and the 1957 thriller ‘Windom’s Way’ with Peter Finch. One of Craigie’s biggest personal successes is the 1949 drama ‘Blue Scar’ – a stirring tale of love, music and above all, coal mining in Abergwynfi, South Wales, and Thynnes’ docu focuses in great length on Craigie’s determination against all odds to see this project through.