The 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London which caused 72 deaths is now the subject of Olaide Sadiq’s heartwrenching and enraging documentary, digging at the causes and movingly interviewing survivors and their families, whose testimony is all but unbearable. At the very least, the film will remind you that when politicians smugly announce they wish to make a bonfire of regulations, they should be taken, under police escort if necessary, and made to stand at the foot of the tower. As for the housing secretary at the time of the tower’s refurbishment, the abysmally arrogant Eric Pickles, he was made a life peer in 2018.
With the very considerable help of the housing-issues journalist Peter Apps, the film shows how the horror was created by a perfect storm of incompetence, mendacity, greed, and (that heartsinking phrase) systemic failure. The local council were keen to spruce up its brutalist, concrete (but safe) Grenfell Tower because it was a “poor cousin” and depressing property values. Decorative cladding was just the ticket and the council allowed the installation of the cheapest tiles, made of aluminium composite material which was terrifyingly flammable. A US aluminium firm’s French division sold the council those tiles; in the subsequent inquiry they were accused of suppressing their own research into how dangerous another of their products was.
