Suicide Watch

We hear the cell door close as the film opens. For its protagonist, this must be a familiar experience. Because it's so dark in the cell, we never see their face, but we do hear their staggered breathing, gradually breaking into sobs. Intercut with this are images of the frightening and beloved world which has been left behind.

Just under four minutes long, Suicide Watch is an attempt to recreate the suffering of isolated asylum seekers, ending with a list of those who have killed themselves whilst under detention in British institutions. The inexperience of its makers shows - it doesn't build up tension as effectively as it might, and no attempt is made to develop the rather clichéd central idea - but it comes across as a statement from the heart, more powerful for being plainly told.

The contrast between the gloom of the cell and the stark bright remembered world is very effective and reverses some of our familiar expectations about asylum seekers, emphasising that the treatment they receive in detention may be more depressing and harder to deal with than the things from which they fled. It also reminds us that these are people who once lived normal lives like us - that they are not inured to horror, but continue to be tortured by the hope of a better world.

Suicide Watch comes across as a slice of raw experience, an expression whose very naïveté illustrates its honesty. Compounded with the list of those who have been destroyed by similar experiences, it makes a powerful statement which we cannot afford to ignore.