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Full house at Rio Cinema, Dalston Feb 8th 2014
c. mooneyphoto
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"A polyphonic meditation on time and urban space, a cinematic version of one of Charles Parker’s ‘Radio Ballads’, this Michael Rosen-scripted evocation of the borough of Hackney is a joyous wonder, an instant addition to the modern canon of filmic London. Super-8 streetscapes and archival alleyways rub up against Al Bowlly tunes and Malian kora music, the testimonies of contemporary Congolese immigrants are heard alongside proud retellings of how anti-fascist Jews purged the neighbourhood of Mosley’s henchmen in the 1940s, and child rhymes hang beautifully over a much maligned and increasingly gentrification-threatened area."
Sukhdev Sandhu, Critic UK/US BFI/Sight and Sound DVDs of 2012
"Under the Cranes" is much more than an impressionistic survey of Hackney, although it succeeds superbly in revealing much of that most diverse of inner London boroughs. It really extends the tradition of the ‘city symphony’, launched in the 1920s before film could speak, and Michael Rosen’s collage of voices – historic, contemporary and imagined – creates a constantly shifting counterpoint to the equally varied images that Emma-Louise Williams has gathered. But the stories it tells are rarely predictable: home of the world’s first plastic; a cab-horse’s point of view on traffic (courtesy of Black Beauty); trying to buy the freehold of a tandoori restaurant. Even the expected battles with Mosley’s black-shirts are told from fresh points of view; and paintings by Leon Kossoff, Jock McFadyen and James Mackinnon intersperse the filmic record of Hackney past and present, with Rosen’s poetry giving it a surreal edge. Like another chronicler of Hackney, Iain Sinclair, the film’s makers want to challenge the logic of ‘regeneration’, and show its human cost. This is a powerful plea for a liveable Hackney, that can continue to welcome the world rather than only its bankers and landlords.
Ian Christie
"What is surprisingly beautiful to me about the film is that we are now free to use material for its intrinsic value and not because of its superior technical quality, which was not so long ago the rule imposed by media and seeing beyond the surface of washed out black and white and faded colour with all the blemishes that film was heir to takes us into history as lived not as pre-digested and re-interpreted."
Roger Crittenden
"What is surprisingly beautiful to me about the film is that we are now free to use material for its intrinsic value and not because of its superior technical quality, which was not so long ago the rule imposed by media and seeing beyond the surface of washed out black and white and faded colour with all the blemishes that film was heir to takes us into history as lived not as pre-digested and re-interpreted."
Roger Crittenden
“Engaging, gentle, dreamlike – Williams’ Hackney is a layered, shifting place teeming with multiple voices and realities, echoed verbally by Rosen’s collage of reminiscence, characteristically generous poetry and collected urban folksongs. Rosen’s presence reminds us of east London’s reputation as a place of political upheaval.”
Sight and Sound, 2011
“A wonderfully life-affirming film-poem of place full of lost time and effacements, reefs of street-markets and shop fronts, painted in stock-brick yellows, steel shutter greys and silvery monochromes; and full of people, always people, the voices who have passed this way and called this home. As a collage of the city at its most quick, it has the ache and tug of what has been and gone; as a moving study of resourcefulness, resistance and resilience, it collapses time and returns each story to its street. “
Paul Farley, poet
“ A marvellous evocation of Hackney – the place, the peoples and their dreams too. It reveals the ruin, disconnection and the frailty of life without giving an inch to literary misanthropy or the voyeuristic perspectives in which east London is exploited for tales of misery, depravity and social failure."
Patrick Wright, cultural historian
“For questionable reasons, in the media, the sight in a market of African textile prints and the sound of a Cockney voice selling tomatoes are separated. It’s untruthful. But the truth is there on Ridley Road Market and it is shot through the film too. And I loved it. This film is a rare thing. “
Lemn Sissay, poet
“This beautifully constructed film urges us to recognise what is already there, at the heart of a diverse and thriving community, while raising the question that perhaps we are all living in the shadow of the cranes."
Socialist Review
“Under the Cranes is an argument to your emotions. Old grainy archive footage seems to invest even the most mundane scenes with a bitter-sweet glow. When these images are paired with sparse piano or traditional Turkish music – and beatboxing and Toumani Diabete – you’ve got a guaranteed tearjerker. But this film is not about nostalgia. The film finds beauty in trash-collecting, and places modern scenes next to old."
Quietus Review
“A film-poem that mixes documentary footage and poetry to explore the effect of urban redevelopment on local people. The film weaves together the history of one small part of London in a wonderfully impressionistic way. “
Socialist Worker
To book the film for a screening please contact the film-maker,
Emma-Louise Williams: emmalouisew@hotmail.com
Forthcoming screenings:
Sunday 5th May 2019 3.45 pm
Save Ridley Road Campaign
Film plus panel
Rio Cinema, Dalston, London
To book the film for a screening please contact the film-maker,
Emma-Louise Williams: emmalouisew@hotmail.com
Forthcoming screenings:
Sunday 5th May 2019 3.45 pm
Save Ridley Road Campaign
Film plus panel
Rio Cinema, Dalston, London
https://riocinema.org.uk/RioCinema.dll/WhatsOn?Film=11867356
Thursday 30 March 2017 7pm
Stop the HDV (Haringey Demolition Vehicle) Fundraiser
Film plus spoken word with Potent Whisper, Michael Rosen, Ava Vidal
Tottenham Chances, London
Wednesday 2 March 2016 2.30 pm
London Screen Study Collection at Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image
"Documentary London Series"
Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/research/birkbeck-institute-for-the-moving-image/documentary-london-screenings-2016
Wednesday 15 July 2015 6.00 pm
Living Maps Network & Passengerfilms present
"Dis/locations" featuring "Under the Cranes"
Monday 20 October 2014 7.30 pm Hackney
London Fields Free Film Festival
St Josephs Education Centre, Mare Street, E8 4SA
Friday 10 October 7.30 pm 2014 Southend
Communities and Asylum Seekers Together: One World Film Festival
O'Neill's IrishPub
119a High Street, Southend SS1 1LH
07947 442247
Thursday 18 September 2014 7.30 pm Hackney
The Bartlett DPU Summerlab Series 2014 LONDON: Localising Legacies
with Alberto Duman
St John The Baptist Church, 3 King Edwards Road, London E9 7SF
Sunday 11 May 2014 5.00 pm The Cube Microplex, Bristol
http://www.cubecinema.com/programme/view/2014/4/4?daysahead=90#event_7366
Thursday 30 March 2017 7pm
Stop the HDV (Haringey Demolition Vehicle) Fundraiser
Film plus spoken word with Potent Whisper, Michael Rosen, Ava Vidal
Tottenham Chances, London
Wednesday 2 March 2016 2.30 pm
London Screen Study Collection at Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image
"Documentary London Series"
Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/research/birkbeck-institute-for-the-moving-image/documentary-london-screenings-2016
Wednesday 15 July 2015 6.00 pm
Living Maps Network & Passengerfilms present
"Dis/locations" featuring "Under the Cranes"
Monday 20 October 2014 7.30 pm Hackney
London Fields Free Film Festival
St Josephs Education Centre, Mare Street, E8 4SA
Friday 10 October 7.30 pm 2014 Southend
Communities and Asylum Seekers Together: One World Film Festival
O'Neill's IrishPub
119a High Street, Southend SS1 1LH
07947 442247
Thursday 18 September 2014 7.30 pm Hackney
The Bartlett DPU Summerlab Series 2014 LONDON: Localising Legacies
with Alberto Duman
St John The Baptist Church, 3 King Edwards Road, London E9 7SF
Sunday 11 May 2014 5.00 pm The Cube Microplex, Bristol
http://www.cubecinema.com/programme/view/2014/4/4?daysahead=90#event_7366
Saturday 10 May 2014 7.30 pm Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea
http://www.dylanthomas.com/events/under-the-cranes/
