Steve McQueen's 'Grenfell' Forces a Confrontation with Tragedy at Serpentine

Steve McQueen's new film 'Grenfell', now showing at Serpentine Gallery in London, approaches the Grenfell Tower fire site via helicopter, orbiting the burnt husk as both a monument and a modernist sculpture. Shot six months after the 2017 fire that raged for 60 hours and claimed 72 lives, the 24-minute silent film lingers on the tower's ashen structure, revealing signs of human activity like scaffolders and bags of burnt detritus. McQueen's signature technique of uncomfortable, lingering camera work echoes his earlier works such as 'Five Easy Pieces' (1995) and 'Hunger' (2008). The film oscillates between reverence for the dead and formal aesthetic complexity, never explicitly connecting tragedy and art. Upon exiting, viewers encounter the names of the 72 victims on the gallery wall, delivering a moral imperative to never forget. The absence of speech or message throughout ensures the connection remains implicit, like a body and a witness to death.