Julien Temple’s epic time-travel journey pays homage to the director’s hometown, but the images of violent fervor bear no resemblance to a serene postcard scene. Echoes of the Victorian era fade into the scars of WWI, suffragettes thrust the ideology of emancipation forward, masses roar, labor unions organize, nazi bombs demolish structures, strikes and riots challenge societal order, and in no decade is a solution found to the disparity of poverty and wealth. The smog-obscured city grows into a separate entity from the rest of England, a lively center of trade and a global battlefield, where the threat of IRA-strikes combines with the perpetual challenges of homelessness and racism.
Temple sugarcoats nothing. Channeling city film classics like Nicole Védrès’ Paris 1900 (1947), the director blends ironic high notes into his hectic montage, giving a voice to both the manager of The Sex Pistols, Malcolm Laren, and the queen of romantic fluff, Barbara Cartland, and squeezing blissful Proustian emotional punches out of the rock-heavy soundtrack. Though images of the translucent waters of the Thames set to The Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset bring a tear to the eye, Temple’s overall picture of a modern Babylon is undeniably brutally hellish, avoiding any excessive stroking of the British ego.
Lauri Timonen