Mr. Jones

For 2 - 3 nights after I watched Mr. Jones, the imaged which were like B&W photographs kept floating in front of me. Shots of snow fields stretched till your eyes could see or just a tree or houses in snow - but stark like made out of logs. The place - Russia / Ukraine. Movies have a way of transporting you to a world so you can experience it sitting in your living room. Beautifully shot, especially the Ukrainian part this movie was like postcards stitched together.

The story is about a welsh journalist who visits Russia and wants to report about the great famine raging in much of USSR particularly Kazakisthan & Ukraine. A famine which Moscow was trying to conceal and the primary cause for it was the collectivization of land / farming. Known as Holdomor (you can google the word) this was the only eye witness account of someone who had visited these parts of Russia. These states were targeted specifically also because they did not want to bow to Moscow. There were lot of discussion in terming this as genocide. 

House in Ukraine

But that is just a political nomenclature issue, the film showcases the suffering of the people of Ukraine. People dying because there is nothing to eat. In one of the scenes Mr. Jones enters a house which is absolutely normal, there are empty plates and utensils, and when he goes inside the bedroom there are 2 old couple lying in the bed fully dressed and under the cover - dead. In another scene people start eating bark of the tree as that is the only thing available in knee deep snow.

This was in 1933 - we are in 2023 and It’s like a deja vu. Almost 100 years later the same thing is repeated in Ukraine (& Gaza). Simply as an unaware political guy I am only shocked that millions of people died last time and again millions will die for land and control. I don’t even want to understand or do something about it. I just turn my face away.

But death of millions - it’s something difficult to turn away. But I do, we have to move on and do our bit and my bit was to clear the empty plastic bottle lying in the walkway and make the road litter free.