The eponymous book is described by David McKittrick as “a monument to the sheer waste and horror of war” and documents over 3,600 lives. No longer in print, it took seven and a half years for the Independent’s Ireland correspondent to compile along with co-authors Brian Feeney, Seamus Kelters and Chris Thornton.
The film’s narration, provided by a range of Irish actors, is unhurried. Underneath their voices sit imagery of archive TV footage and newspaper reports of events and funerals, alongside superbly shot scenes from nature and decaying buildings.
Many of the lives included are also lost in the sense that they are forgotten names, often from incidents that had no lasting profile in the general public consciousness. They became part of the blur of daily attrocities.
It is sometimes tempting – and often suggested by contributors to radio phone-in programmes – to move on from the Troubles, to draw a line and look forward, not back. For many of the people in the Lost Lives book, and for their families, it must feel like Northern Ireland has already done that. Yet in parallel with this forgetfulness, we still neglect to deal with many of the causes of division, deprivation and discrimination that continue to stir up dissonant actions in communities.
Two of the featured deaths include words from suicide notes, speaking from beyond the grave. Julie Statham’s death came just four weeks after the murder of her boyfriend and his father. Her grief-stricken words sum up the agonising loss felt by loved ones, and the ineffectiveness (or even absence) of bereavement counselling. It was all I could to not wail out loud. Another convicted terrorist who ended his own life belatedly reflects on what was lost when he pulled the trigger on a workmate.
As the film concludes, the narrative switches from individuals to the collective: the thousands of names scroll past, nearly too quickly, sorted by year into bunches of ten, laid out in seven columns. The scale of the Troubles is once again apparent. And the names don’t stop in the late 1990s or mid 2000s. They keep coming. Right up to the final gut-wrenching “2019 / Lyra McKee”.
This is art, hung on a wide cinematic screen in a dark gallery that doubles as a cinema screen. It’s provocative, raw, touching, and melancholy. It’s a lamentation rather than a documentary.
It’s not over. But it should be. And it must be.
After a world première at the BFI London Film Festival on 10 October, Lost Lives will be released in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 11 October. A Q&A with directors Dermot Lavery and Michael Hewitt will follow the 6pm screening on Saturday 12. The film will be screened in selected cinemas across the UK on Wednesday 23 October, and will be broadcast by BBC One NI next month.
Cross-posted from Alan in Belfast blog.
Alan Meban. Tweets as @alaninbelfast. Blogs about cinema and theatre over at Alan in Belfast. A freelancer who writes about, reports from, live-tweets and live-streams civic, academic and political events and conferences. He delivers social media training/coaching; produces podcasts and radio programmes; is a FactCheckNI director; a member of Ofcom’s Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland; and a member of the Corrymeela Community.
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