Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, November 19: PULP: A FILM ABOUT LIFE, DEATH & SUPERMARKETS
Florian Habicht’s affectionate ode to the band and to the working-class city that birthed it bowed at SXSW this Spring. It went on to screen at Hot Docs, Sheffield, Film Society’s Sound + Vision, Awesome Fest, Rooftop Films, Docaviv, Sydney, Melbourne, Shanghai, Traverse City, Dokufest, Taipei Golden Horse, Ambulante, and In-Edit Barcelona, among several others.
Habicht’s refreshingly quirky take on the music doc makes for a perfect match with the Sheffield band’s sensibilities. At once down-to-earth and tragically hip, the Jarvis Cocker-fronted Britpop band returns to its hometown to give a final concert, and one that aims to make up for their memorably underwhelming 1988 farewell concert. Rather than mixing the expected concert performance footage with backstage hijinks or snippets of band history, Habicht’s film instead uncovers the key to understanding the band’s appeal in a portrait that captures the city itself, whose residents, old and young, espouse a general, if sometimes muted, admiration for the local boys (and one girl) who made it in the big time in the mid-1990s. Beyond casual interviews with the band, the driving conceit of the film is Habicht’s staging of several elaborate set pieces starring local residents as they enact some of the band’s repertoire, including “Common People” and “Help the Aged,” to create a whimsical, often charming, and very human testament to the connection between the band and the city.
what (not) to doc 