
In Plain Sight
GRENFELL WAS FILMED in December 2017, about six months after the catastrophic fire of June 14, when seventy-two people were killed as the tower, a social housing block in North Kensington, London, was engulfed in flames. Steve McQueen’s film begins in darkness. The screen is black for an unusually long time, then suddenly filled with an aerial view from a helicopter. It’s a beautiful winter’s afternoon, the sun low in the western sky. The helicopter is flying over green fields and woodland. A city is on the horizon. The flight is smooth; the camera is fixed to the underside of the helicopter,