Estate: A Reverie

Viewers who followed the hit working-class U.K. soap opera Eastenders will find themselves literally immersed in the real disadvantaged East End of London in Andrea Luka Zimmerman's lyrical documentary, although some viewers may wonder if this also constitutes a certain art-house brand of romanticization. The Haggerston public-housing estate in the borough of Hackney was constructed in the 1930s as a solution to the ills of the wretched slums. Over time, however, the low-income estate itself grew neglected and reputedly crime-infested. Inhabitants staged rent strikes for basic upkeep and resisted longstanding schemes to have the place demolished. Zimmerman (who grew up on the estate herself) sympathetically focuses on various residents, from seniors who remember WWII deprivation (and seemingly never recovered) to optimistic immigrants from Africa and the West Indies—urban outcasts trying to persevere even as their flats (some quite cozy and neat, others squalid) are systematically emptied. Council authorities running Haggerston remain offscreen, not offering their side of the story (all displaced tenants had other housing offers). Estate effectively pays tribute to a hardscrabble mini-community—unfairly stereotyped as undesirables—who are being destroyed by time and opportunities for gentrification. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)