Cannes 2017: Sea Sorrow, film review – A terrible tale told badly

Sea Sorrow has no formal qualities as a film, says David Sexton
Debut: this is the first film Vanessa Redgrave has directed
David Sexton21 November 2017

At the age of 80, Vanessa Redgrave has made her debut as a film director — or, to put it another way, she has shared a home movie with us.

Sea Sorrow, produced by her son Carlo Gabriel Nero, has no formal qualities as a film, save for a repeated image of rustling gold foil — the metallic insulating sheets given to those rescued from the boats.

This is, instead, an amateur polemic about the refugee crisis, opening with footage of young men in a holding centre in Italy talking about their difficult journeys to Europe.

Soon, though, Redgrave herself, her family and the theatrical community are very much to the fore. We see her trips to Calais and Kosovo, we see the pro-refugee demo in London on September 17 last year: Vanessa Redgrave dauntingly asks a little girl if she has any questions for her; her niece Jemma Redgrave emotionally insists refugees are welcome.

There’s an extended comparison to the situation of Jews in Nazi Germany, validated by the testimony of Lord Dubs, who sponsored an amendment to the Immigration Act to allow more unaccompanied children into the UK. Vanessa Redgrave testifies that in the war she too was evacuated, to Herefordshire, a refugee in her own country. Ralph Fiennes performs bits of Prospero’s speech about his “sea sorrow” as a castaway, heavily cut to reduce the lordliness. Vanessa Redgrave proudly displays a poster made by her youngest grand-daughter, reading “For Every Child Protection”. Perhaps the whole film should have been kept in the family too.

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