Overview

Reporting someone missing to the Metropolitan, (London) police.

Article

Monday evening 5pm.  There’s a phone call from my daughter she’s on her way home.  She should be there in an hour so. She’ll phone me when she gets there.

This is good as I’m going over to see her, to pick up some of her stuff and her, to bring her to my house so that I can take her Bristol the next day.

Monday evening: 7.30pm.  No phone call.  So I ring her flat – answer phone.  Ring her mobile – just the answer message – no reply.

Leave it until 8:30pm.  I ring her flat – answer phone.  Ring her mobile – just the answer message – no reply.

Maybe she’s seen a friend and is talking.  Make myself a cup of tea.

9pm, 9:30pm, 10pm, 10.30pm.  Ring her flat – still the answer phone.  Ring her mobile – still the ‘leave a message’ message.

Now getting worried.  The move to Bristol is important to her.  She needs to be there to sign for her new apartment.

Paced around a little.  Realised that the progamme ‘Without a Trace‘, a series about an FBI team investigating missing persons was on the TV.

No it’s OK.  She’s seeing a friend.  But, there was an actual murder in the street where she lived.  Has she been in an accident.

Did the phones again.  Just the ‘leave a message’ messages.

10.45 Phone.  No reply.

Looked on the internet.  Found the Metropolitan Police’s guide to reporting a missing person.

I’m English so made myself another cup of tea.

She’s OK.  But is she.

11pm.  Nothing.  11.15. Nothing.

Looked up her address.  Then phoned the main police control room.

A very helpful, very sympathetic operator took my daughter’s details and my details.  She explained to me that the police could not start an official missing person’s report until they had checked the person’s apartment.

This would mean I would have to go her to flat and if she did not answer the door the police would break in to make sure she was not ill or had fallen and knocked herself out.

I said I was sure that she would have phoned me if she had arrived home.  I then asked how I would check if she had been in an accident, arrested or been a crime victim.

I was then questioned if I thought that there might be any reason that she might be arrested and did I think that she might be a victim

I was impressed by this as the operator was being very proactive if there were any other issues.  I said there was not.

The operator then repeated, sympathetically, that she could not make a formal missing person’s report until the police had investigated her apartment.  I said at this stage I didn’t want to as I’m convinced she would have been in contact if she’d arrived.

The operator then said she would make an incident report and pass that on to the local police, which was probably the best I could hope for at that time.

She then took a full description of more daughter.

She tried to comfort me saying that most people do turn up.

Sat down, made a cup of tea.

11.30pm.  Nothing.  11.40pm. Nothing.  11.50pm. Nothing.  Midnight. Nothing.

Should I get the police to break in.  There was no point.  She would have phoned.  Reluctantly I decided I couldn’t do anything else that night, but wait.

Couldn’t concentrate.  Just made another cup of tea and robotically watched a poor movie on the TV.

About 12.20 in the morning my daughter phoned.  She’d left her phone at a friend’s place, but did not know which one.  So she’d travelled to see her friends to try and find it.

I was relieved, but angry.

I phoned the police and got talking to a different operator.  Again I was impressed as I was thoroughly questioned that my daughter was alright and safe.

It then took me about two hours to settle myself down before I went to bed.

Conclusion

The calibre of the Metropolitan Police’s control room has vastly improved.  I was treated sympathetically, but the operators were on the alert for potential crimes and to protect potential victims.

In this way the police can pick up a hidden agenda behind a call, such as an abusive partner saying his girlfriend, wife, is missing, when she is really trying to escape.

Overview

This brilliantly shot film in black and white give a startling picture of a small, rural, claustrophobic in a deeply religious,Protestant community.  In some ways there is order with the count, the biggest landowner, though not liked, is  respected as he controls the lives of the rest of the village.

The story tells it story gradually showing the undercurrents of dissatisfaction and disturbing trends, which highlight the fragility of the community, the beginning of an end of an era, which would not, could not survive the trauma of coming the ‘Great War’.

Review

The first incident is a wire stretched across a gateway.  It brings the doctor’s horse down heavily and fractures the doctor’s collar bone.  This incident is disturbing as no one in such a small community seems to know who put it there.

Life goes on.  The scythes are cutting down the hay.  The cycle of the farming world goes on.  Then, just before the annual harvest feast, a woman dies, falling through rotten floor boards in the mill.  The tension builds and the workers are cowed, as the count makes his formal speech, thanking the workers.  The tension eases as the drink and food is given out until the son of the dead woman destroys one of the baron’s field of cabbages.

A farmer kills himself.  A window is opened to kill a baby?  We don’t know.  A girl dreams of a threat to a handicapped child and a couple of days later he disappears and is found tortured and tied to a tree.  Can it be the children?  They have an unhealthy interest in the troubles of the village.

The pastor is overbearing and the scenes in the church and his treatment of his children raise the forbidding atmosphere of the film. His forcing of two of his older children to wear, as a punishment, white ribbons to signify their purity.  However the closed society is being challenged.   The count’s wife is seeking, unthinkable,  a divorce.

But is this a sign of the coming Third Reich.  I think not.  It shows a period where things were beginning to change.  The appearance of a car, even the bicycle, lead to changing times.  Roles are beginning to be challenged though there is pressure to keep the old ways.

Summary

This film is good.  It examines the society in detail.  It suggests themes; changes and challenges that are happening in this rural location.   There are the violent incidents; there are the undercurrents.  A good film to see and to make you think.

This Romanian film is really an exorcism of the communist past. It really consists of four separate stories of the urban myths, or did the event really happen?, under the perfect society of Nicolae Ceau?escu’s regime, (the Romanians are good on irony).

The official visit

So we have the tale of the official visit, where a small, rural village prepares tries to set up a perfect reception for some of the communist leaders as they drive through, or will they stop off for some food, on their regional visit.

Why are there cows? You should have sheep. Where can you get hold of white pigeons within two hours? And should the carousel for the village’s annual fair be up or removed and will the fat, local policeman give them any petrol to run it?

Officials arrive to check everything is ready for the visit. They arrogantly disrupt the village and exploit the village’s hospitality as they demand entertainment, food and drink.

The final scene on the carousel is a very funny metaphor, not just for Romanian politics, but for politics in general.

The pig

Imagine you are living in a large tower block, in fact in Romania everybody did, well except for the communist hierarcy, who needed more space, and luxurious surrounding, to enable them to server the masses. So you’re living in this large, housing complex and it is illegal to trade in food, with years in jail.

And well let’s imagine, no you’ve actually got, an idiot cousin, who has agreed to supply a pig for you to eat, and to share with a doctor as a bribe. Well it’s late at night and cousin turns up with the pig, a big fat pig, a live pig, a live squealing pig, that you’re going to have to slaughter in your tiny little flat. And you have to do it without any of the neighbours knowing. Well it’s difficult as the film demonstrates.

The other sections

The three other sections show the problems of the man, corrupted by supplying eggs to a very attractive woman, who runs a restaurant; a young school girl, who is budding entrepreneur, within the used bottle racket and the problems of a newspaper picture editor to make Ceau?escu stand tall, in a world with no digital cameras or Photoshop, (pass the scissors and glue).

Conclusion

This is a really charming, slightly humorous, informative film.  It shows how the downtrodden people  of Romania survived during the terrible times of the autocratic regime.  The film is particularly good at the small detail, such as the fat kid at school giving food to a girl, so that he could go to her birthday party.

Seen yesterday