Having never seen The Great Rock 'n'
Roll Swindle, Absolute Beginners, The Filth & The Fury or Earth
Girls Are Easy, my introduction to Julien Temple came in the form of
his 2006 Glastonbury documentary.
Halfway through my initial viewing of
said documentary, it had already become one of my favourite films. It
captures perfectly the life-affirming wonder that is a weekend at
Worthy Farm. It's hard to put into words as to quite why Glastonbury
is unlike and superior to any other festival, but somehow that film
nails it in one long montage of disjointed archive footage set to the
best possible soundtrack. Every time I watch it these days, within
seconds I yearn for the Brigadoon which has for me become almost as
important an annual experience as Christmas.
I suppose total sensory overload is the
only way you can contain so many strong and disparate themes and
emotions in one manageable running-time. Not only is each image worth
a thousand words, but each is also liable to be interpreted in a
completely different way by any given person. Through being presented
with what is, quite possibly, far too much information, you're free
to thread your own narrative, tell your own stories and to will the
film to be whatever you want it to be.
Well, he's done it again. And this time
he's tackled a theme so impossibly sprawling that he's made his
success with Glastonbury look amateur by comparison.
Glastonbury remains one of my favourite
films simply because I feel that the festival itself is such a big
part of me. But even though Temple achieved the impossible in
capturing something as elusive as the feel of a music festival, you
have to consider the relative parameters. The festival itself has
only been taking place for about four decades, and when it does take
place it does so for less than a week each year.
The subject of London: The Modern
Babylon is a dense metropolis of liquid culture and monumental
history which has been in a state of continuous existence for
millenia.
With Glastonbury, Temple could, at the
very least, structure his film in the same way as the festival itself: You start with people arriving on the Wednesday and
you end with people leaving on the Monday. Indeed, it struck me on
repeat viewings how the “narrative” progresses from morning to
night over the course of three days. Simple, when you think about it.
But how do you even begin to approach
the throbbing orb of humanity and gravity that is a city like London?
I suppose we must start like Temple
doubtlessly started – by assessing as to what he actually wanted to
achieve. I believe that, like with Glastonbury, he wanted to capture
the feel of the city– to ask why so many people are so drawn there – why it occupies not just such a large land-mass, but also
such a large part of our shared thoughts and histories. I mean, how
many degrees of separation are there between London and anyone in the
world who you could possibly care to mention?
Temple doesn't start at the very
beginning, as that would be insane. Rather, he starts with the
invention of film. I suppose he had to; otherwise his film would open
with a series of static rostrum camera shots of engravings and
paintings.
Instead, then, it begins with shaky,
hand-cranked silent images to which have been set a soundtrack which
alternates between then-contemporary and now-contemporary. This
footage – presumably shot to capture existence for the sake of
posterity – are already filled to the brim with life. Incredibly
though, they're painted in even broader colours with interviews with
people who were actually alive back then.
One such woman, 107 years old, has an
absolutely astonishing memory. She speaks of things like they
happened a decade ago rather than a century. And when she speaks, she
does so in a halting weariness behind which you can feel every single
one of those hundred-plus years. It's powerful stuff.
The film progresses from this shaky
starting point through following affairs on a loosely
decade-by-decade basis. As a historical essay, without a doubt it's
of the cultural history school. The emphasis is very much upon how
events effected the lives of people on a daily basis.
And throughout we're therefore struck
with just how resourceful people are. We progress through decades of
war, unrest, urban-renewal, immigration and depression, yet the one
recurring theme seems to be humanity's ability to live through
anything. No matter what happens, we're shown time and again that
people still have lives. They still work and they still have fun.
Another more distressing theme is that
of fear, distrust, hatred and violence. Like a depressing
rite-of-passage, identical suspicion and hostility is directed at
successive generations of minority groups as they first come to the
city. Never mind man's inhumanity to man: Man's distrust of man is
distressing enough.
It ends on a positive note as implied
by the title: London is the new Babylon, a place where each and every
culture in the world can coexist if not in harmony, than in mutual
tolerance – everybody's free to do as they please in London. The
city and, by extension, the country is better off as a result. One of
the most endearing moments is when one of the veterans interviewed
tells of how his grandchildren don't feel like inhabitants of the
British Isles. Rather, they feel like members of the human race.
Be that as it may, another strong
implication is that fear and loathing between cultures has simply
been replaced by fear and distrust between the classes. The gulf
between rich and poor is far greater than ever truly was that between
black and white. An early theme introduced is that of the London mob,
and it's near the end that alarming footage of last year's riots fill
the screen. The suggestion seems to be that we had better get used to
such carnage. It's always been inevitable, and it's only just
starting to break.
Despite this, though, I found the whole
viewing experience to be positively life-affirming. Over a century of
history and culture was crammed into just over two hours of
running-time. In that time, hundreds, if not thousands of stories
were told – and every single second is infused with passion,
vibrancy, poignancy, energy and the marvellous incandescent glow of human
experience.
Of course, having never lived in
London, I cannot possibly comment upon whether or not it succeeded in
capturing the feel of the place. But in its own right, as a
freewheeling open piece of cultural history, it's nothing short of a
masterpiece.
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