I accept that the man who filmed that desperately sad Ryanair rant was well intentioned, did us a favour in the end, but wonder whether the world might also benefit not only from cameras but, also, more people simply standing up and suggesting that other people consider not being such racist pricks. Tuza-Ritter proved that you can both film someone, and make a difference by interfering, when it’s that bloody wrong. Very, very little is funny about her attitude to Marish though: she would pretend at some points to treat her almost like family, with “darling… could you…” endearments: in half a sentence she would have segued into, say: “What would you ever do with perfume, you old loser hag?” It inadvertently, and despite the undoubted evils of enforced slavery – 1.2 million affected in Europe alone – made me think hard about the subtler, less brutal forms, where coercion, enabling, mutual destructive self-loathing and co-dependency can play their parts, as in carers. The film-maker paid her for the privilege – thus Eta makes money from Marish three times over – and only her fatly beringed fingers could be shown: in this she almost assumed the monstrous shadowy proportions of the “Thaamas!” maid in Tom and Jerry, or Howard Wolowitz’s unseen mom in The Big Bang Theory. The star of the show was undoubtedly Marish, who had a quick wit about her even in her misery, but I was fascinated by Eta, never seen on screen – she had made that a condition of Bernadett Tuza-Ritter’s camera being allowed in to film Marish over two years. The diatribe was directed at “Marish” (we later discovered she was named Edith), one of the slaves, who was just 52, but thanks to no teeth, looked about twice that, and had, through unhappy and far-off circumstances, never fully explained, got into debt with someone long years ago and been not only cooking and cleaning for Eta’s boorish, manipulative family but working eight-hour shifts in a factory and having to give every single euro to Eta.
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