What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day?
For this piece, I am going to focus on this film that we watched in class which discusses the destruction of Lea Valley’s wilderness during the buildup to the London Olympics. There are many scenes in the movie that deserves particular attention. Together, the scenes help to convey a depressing feeling as London loses the last hint of its recent history and gets completely modernized. There is also the idea that London will always change anyway and there are countless layers of history buried beneath each piece of land.
The two scenes above exposes Lea Valleys reaction towards the development of the London Olympics. The first scene which shows the newspaper about the Olympics being placed on a door on the ground shows a lack of caring and gives a sense of desertion. The door shows a destruction of the houses in the area which reminds the audiences of the humans that used to live there. Similar ideas are shown in the image on the right. By placing the sign for the Olympics behind bars and next to the fire exit, we can deduce that the area really dislikes the Olympics and its impact on the local community,
When someone said in the movie that the Olympics is “something for people to believe in, people need something to believe in.”, the scene been shown completely contradicted that idea. The boy who is practicing cricket among the wilderness will soon lose both the wilderness he loves and also the sports he loves as the Olympics which will replace the wilderness does not even include cricket. The camera in this scene deliberately blurs out the boy to show that he can do nothing to prevent the destruction of the plant, representing the wilderness.
This shot from behind the boy shows what lies ahead for the area and the boy as he looks into the future. The light (sun) shines on the new stadium for the Olympics and completely avoids the boy in the picture. This helps to bring out the depressing mood of the boy as he witnesses what will happen to the last piece of wilderness. The building also looks very awkward in the scene as if it shouldn’t belong on this flat piece of terrain.
In comparison to the Lea Valley in the movie, these are pictures of Lea Valley today after being reconstructed for the Olympics. We can see that nothing from the movie is still present in the scene. Though one can say that there are many history buried beneath this piece of land, it is impossible to find them. Looking at these pictures, I feel that though change has displaced the history of the place, it is not possible to prevent change as it occurs constantly. Lea Valley had countless pieces of history over many years which are built on top of each other. It is naive to regret and feel sad about changes. Maybe, one day, Lea Valley will get a different face. What is important is that the changes are recorded and people can still find it on paper and in films.
