In These New Times

STOP STIRRING IT ALL UP, MR DAVIES

Nov 9 2008 by Our Correspondent, Wales On Sunday

I COULDN’T believe it when I saw Monmouth Tory MP David Davies on television last week pontificating and complaining about the highly-acclaimed and award-winning film Hunger, and worse – it seemed to me – stirring up controversy about the Welsh Assembly Government.
Just in case you don’t know, Hunger has been directed by Turner prize-winning artist Steve McQueen and the film takes an uncompromising look at the last six weeks in the life of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. Sandra Hebron for Time Out says it’s “a film of outstanding boldness and beauty and a compelling study of people in extreme circumstances resorting to extreme measures. McQueen is to be applauded for a brilliant and uncompromising film”.
Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian says that it’s “outstandingly made, a raw powerful film-making and an urgent reminder of this uniquely ugly, tragic and dysfunctional period in British and Irish history”.
Praising the film in The Times, Wendy Ide says the film is “at times, harrowingly beautiful, and not a film that celebrates terrorism – violence from both sides is shown as equally repulsive, grief equally devastating. It was a messy period in history and McQueen’s confrontational, confident picture captures that”.
These critiques are important because they make a mockery of David Davies’ attempt to create controversy. He says “it’s a disgrace, a film which is sympathetic to an IRA terrorist is given Welsh Assembly backing. I don’t give a damn how many awards it’s won or has been listed for – it’s just another piece of IRA propaganda”.
As an MP, David Davies must be only too aware of how inflammatory his remarks could be and how people who have no knowledge of this film could be tempted to join him on his bandwagon. He says it’s “disgraceful” that Welsh taxpayers’ money is spent in this way, but personally I find it disgraceful that an elected Member of Parliament should go out of his way to inflame things.
The Wales Creative IP Fund was launched in May 2005 and has invested more than £7m in 11 films and TV productions since then.
The film industry is enormously important to any country as the spin-offs from a successful film can be huge. In 2007 the industry brought more than £32m into the Welsh economy. The Edge Of Love this year generated more than £1m of direct economic benefits to West Wales. Throughout the UK, the film industry contributed £4.3bn to the economy, a 39% increase in two years. David Davies should care that Hunger is an award-winning film because it will hopefully attract more work to our country.
It said a lot that the Royal British Legion decided not to comment on the MP’s views, but said that the organisation backed freedom of expression and would not condemn creative works.
So you have to ask yourself why a Member of Parliament would want to create this fuss. It couldn’t be simply because he’s trying to undermine the Welsh Assembly Government?
Could it?