Love You to Death: a Year of Domestic Violence remembers 86 lost lives
Love You to Death: a Year of Domestic Violence remembers 86 lost lives - but aims to save many more
Vanessa Engle shines a spotlight on the women murdered by men who professed to love them – but will her documentary start a conversation about domestic violence?
By Hannah Shaddock
Wednesday 16 December 2015 at 2:42PM
In 2013, 86 women died at the hands of their partner or ex-partner – killed by the men who professed to love them, men who, in the words of film-maker Vanessa Engle, “know what colour they painted their toenails”. Engle (above) is the woman behind Love You to Death: a Year of Domestic Violence, a poignant, unsettling documentary that names all 86 women, focusing particularly on seven of them. Though the women’s ages and backgrounds vary, one thing unites them: the violence they suffered at the hands of a so-called loved one.
The stream of names feels relentless, but that’s the point – it IS relentless. On average, two women are killed by a partner or ex-partner every week in the UK. Though the sheer volume of names is shocking, it’s the steady, quiet testimony of friends and family members of the murdered women that makes the greatest impact.
There is Anne-Marie Birch, killed by her husband of 17 years. She is remembered by her teenage daughter, Molly, who calmly recounts her mum’s last moments: “I think he said he put a rope around her head and then hit her over the head with a big branch. He tied it up more, kissed her and told her he loved her, and then drove away.”
. . . .
The heartbreaking, maddening thing is that it’s the same story, over and over again: a man loses control over a wife, a girlfriend, a former partner, and can’t stand it – so he kills her. The tragedy in each case – thrown into sharp relief by Engle’s film, which airs on BBC2 tonight – is that the women either didn’t realise, or couldn’t make known, the extent of their abuse. Or that when they tried to speak up, the danger they were in wasn’t acknowledged by those with the power to help.
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http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-12-16/love-you-to-death-a-year-of-domestic-violence-remembers-86-lost-lives---but-aims-to-save-many-more
