Watchification

I’ve been thinking about this programme for a few days. I watched it with my wife and it left us literally speechless. I wasn’t at all sure I should put it up here, though, mostly because I didn’t think I’d be able to come up with anything to say about it. But really I think I actually feel an obligation to do so. It’s brilliant TV—formally beautiful and quite heart-breaking.

And it’s really a kind of war memorial, the kind of war memorial we make now in the television age. The programme’s got quite a lot in common with those older war memorials too. It’s a granite slab of a programme—over three hours long—and it records every single British death (so far) in Iraq and Afghanistan in a kind of mesmerising ribbon of grief and memory.

War memorials, of course, don’t expire after seven days so I find myself wondering if The Fallen will disappear along with all the other iPlayer shows in a few days, which would seem wrong.

Here’s another programme that’s not about the credit crunch. Also a pretty good reminder that there are still plenty of people in the world who have better things to do than worry about the crash and its consequences. There’s something special about this BBC News Channel feature: something really haunting about the vivid street level footage of ordinary Iraqis, police officers and American troops (by camera operator Mark McCauley). The simplified images you get from the news media daily just don’t prepare you for the richness and complexity of life as lived in Dora (the Baghdad neighbourhood featured)—for the friendships that Iraqis and American soldiers are forming, for instance. Elegant and important news television.