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 Keiller's films are important. They are also about the city and it's effects on the country. About exploring the particular problem of the city under late capitalism, in particular London, although the insights he has could hold for cities elsewhere. Some backstory: Patrick Keiller is a British filmmaker who, in 1994 and 1997 respectively, created two startling films that applied the situationist concept of the dérive (http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm) to London and it's outer zones. These films, London and Robinson in Space are narrated by a truly excellent Paul Scofield, who details the journey that he and his friend and occasional sexual partner Robinson undertook. The films uses static shots to convey the story being told in a way that's remniscent of Chris Marker's docu-essays, but Keiller is deeply unique - he can be at times ironic and inciteful, blunt but subtle. Just take this, for the opening lines from London "Dirty old Blighty, under-educated, economically backward, bizarre. A catalogue of modern miseries. With it's fake traditions, it's Irish war, its militarism and secrecy, it's silly old judges, it's hatred of intellectuals, it's ill health and bad food, it's sexual repression, it's hypocrisy and racism, and it's indolence. It's so exotic, so homemade" On screen we see Tower Bridge on a grimy day, opening it's gates to a cruise ship that, as Robinson informs us, costs "four thousand pounds a week" for one of the berths. It is a "creamy berg of threat" highlighting what London was in the 80's, the tired old tradition letting in the nouveau riche to neoliberalise us into nothingness. Robinson is an interesting character, a poor, well-educated arts teacher who studies the psychogeography of London, the hidden history that looks at its place as a home for exiles, the vibrancy they bring, the romanticism of the city and its surrounds - William Morris, Rimbaud, Blake, Sterne. He also confronts the waste, the uranium being channeled up the Thames, the IRA bombs, the close-mindedness. Robinson also uncovers the revolutionary history, finding on Cannon street the stone that Jack Cade, the working class rebel of the 1500's, struck after taking possession of London (Robinson declaring "Cannon Street a sacred street and the number 15 a sacred bus route") and his investigations into the romanticism of London at times seem almost like the best alternative travel guide.  Robinson in Space continues this exploration, focusing less on London and more on the provinces. It's also a continuation of the themes around Britain in the 80's, the commodification of our environment by capital - how we came to have these shipping can cities on our docks, massive retail plants in places like Newbury, Swindon, Reading, how our prisons are privatised, how - despite the myth of a declining nation, the UK is properous (just that the riches are staying out of the hands of most of us). Along the way he visits the resistance to this, the camps set up in forests by protesters, and Blackpool, Robinson's utopia, which the film captures in breaktaking silence as the perfect conjunction between the imagination and the reality. I don't expect people to love these films, but they are important. Keiller is the best living British filmmaker for me and I do hope people can give them a try. You will be rewarded. You can get them from youtube currently (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baL4JqCqllY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY2O16FmHxs) although the Blurays would be the preferred way of watching them harpomarxist fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Aug 7, 2014 |
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Aug 7, 2014 02:42
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