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The Block is striking in its similarities to films made several decades
earlier about squalid housing conditions. In particular, it bears a
disconcerting resemblance to Housing Problems (1935) in its depiction of cramped
and dilapidated living conditions and the quietly desperate observations of the
unfortunate residents, addressed directly to camera.
The programme was made early in the career of Paul Watson, best known for his
pioneering use of 'fly on the wall' observational filmmaking in his
ground-breaking series The Family (BBC, 1974) and in the widely admired Sylvania
Waters (BBC, 1993). In The Block, Watson interviews tenants sympathetically and
allows them to speak for themselves, taking care not to sentimentalise their
situation. Although there is a narrator, it is the words of the residents
themselves that resonate, as they talk fluently and unselfconsciously of their
frustrations.
The plight of the young woman, Edie, recalls Ken Loach's fictional character
in Cathy Come Home (BBC, tx 16.11.1966). As with Cathy, when Edie has children
the state intervenes; both mothers lose their infants to the social services and
are simultaneously robbed of their hope for the future.
There is little cause for hope at the end of the programme, when the tenants'
continued protests fail to persuade the council to honour their promises to
re-house them. Their only visible solace is demonstrated in a sequence in which
a young woman, haemorrhaging after an abortion, is carried from the block on a
stretcher still smoking her cigarette.
The Block was shown in a prime time slot on BBC1 and generated much debate.
One Daily Mail reviewer suggested that the programme "provided plenty of
illustrations for the argument that these people are homeless because they are
lazy, unorganised and smoke too much." But this was a rare unsympathetic
perspective. Other reviewers admired the programme's honesty and were stunned by
its revelations. Dennis Potter wrote "I cannot remember feeling quite so caught
up or, more painful, quite so caught out by any other television documentary I
have ever seen."
Ros Cranston
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1. Suffering the block (3:18)
