Coming to theatres via Cinedigm’s Docurama Festival initiative today, Tuesday, June 4: LONDON: THE MODERN BABYLON
Julien Temple’s tour of 20th and 21st century London made its debut at Toronto last year. It has screened at IDFA, Göteborg, Tampere, and Torino, among other fests, and was nominated for best doc for both the European Film Awards and the British Independent Film Awards. The film wraps up Cinedigm’s seven-film program bringing feature documentaries to theatres weekly in up to fifteen US markets, including NYC, LA, Pasadena, Encino, San Diego, Palm Desert, Austin, San Antonio, Phoenix, Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Hartford, New Haven, Ithaca, Richmond, and Helena. The films are also available for additional theatrical-on-demand screenings via Tugg. In NYC, Cinema Village will screen the doc today, Thursday, and Saturday.
Temple, working with editor Caroline Richards, has crafted a remarkable chronicle of a city, moving from before the first World War through to 2012 as London prepares for the Olympics. Packing more than a hundred years of history into just over a two hour film, it’s surprising how comprehensive, yet still impressionistic, it all comes off. Although there are some present-day interviews, the vast majority of the project is a quick-fire collage of often fascinating archival footage, covering not only the familiar aspects of British history – WWII’s Blitz, 1960s’ Swinging London, 1980s’ Thatcherism – but also touching on other intriguing facets of the sociocultural development of the metropolis, from the suffragette movement to the influx of immigrants from former British colonies and the xenophobia that resulted. By the project’s nature, Temple doesn’t stick with any one person or time period for very long, keeping an energetic pace that carries the viewer like a rollercoaster ride through the dense expanse of the past century, straying from a strictly linear path with an occasional time displaced flash forward juxtaposition cleverly connecting the distant past with more recent developments that speak to similar concerns. This, combined with the doc’s driving soundtrack and a recurring visual motif of the crowd (or mob at times), reflect Temple’s punk sensibility – a welcome approach that lends a distinctive and youthful energy to the project that keeps it from ever becoming a dry, academic exercise.
what (not) to doc 