London

I used to visit London since the mid-70s. From mid 70s through the 90s, London was more or less the way Patrick Keiller presented it. Beautiful, charming and dangerous. The Beauty and charm of the city lurked in its history, lore, architecture and diversity of its inhabitants among many other things; while its dangerousness came from its wild and lawless youth and thugs. I recall how risky it was to walk alone into certain parts of the city at night. Whereas London in the early 21st century is totally different from its 20th century version. I remember London in 2005 or around when I visited it last, clean, tidy and safe with all sorts of surveillance devices everywhere. I have no intent to relate this to party politics; but for sure it is high tech, and the will to use high tech to tame and discipline the wild in a huge and beautiful metropolitan, that transformed the city from the Jungle it was to the park it is now.

During the year 1992, in which this beautiful documentary takes place, I lived in London and became acquainted not only with the kitschy tourist attractions but also with the city which true Londoners know: the little secrets found in back alleys, unknown museums, and interesting buildings. This movie is a sort of homage to that side of the city, and is quite well done. To me, seeing it a year after coming back to the states, it exactly embodied the spirit of that hidden London. Best watched in a decrepit theater on a crackling film reel.

Well, I don't have anything to say about this film that's as intelligent as Margarita Nikolaevna's comments, which you should read.

A whole interconnected body of work appeared at the end of the twentieth century which seemed to want to deal with 'the problem of London'--with the fact that, while London had been the most modern city on the planet for a terrible length of time, it had never arrived at any conscousness of the nature of its own modernity. I'll name some of these works---Iain Sinclair's _Lights out for the Territory_, Allan Moore's masterpiece, _From Hell_ (which this film understands, I think, much more deeply than the Hughes Brothers'), the pics of Mark Atkins, Peter Ackroyd's _Hawksmoor_, Michael Moorcock's _King of the City_, the job Bill Drummond did on the M25---but Patrick Keiller's film is the most magnificently negative and observant of all of these. Of course it enters into a dialogue with Benjamin's marvelous theorising about how Paris was the Capital of the 19th Century, but if you haven't seen it you should be warned that there's a real humour and humanity here which we're accustomed not to find in serious documentary: eg. the great joke of the mysterious guy in the shopping-centre reading Benjamin.... Oh, yeah, now I wait in the Ikea caff, piling meatball upon meatball, and waiting for the fullfilment and suppression of flat-pack...

Woke before its time. Reeks of politics and identity politics. Lovey-leftism at its best - pure Fabianism. Of course the BFI love it. Interesting how the IRA issue has evaporated - largely due to terrorism becoming associated with other groups, I expect. A star for the images of London and a star for the idea.

This is the first of the two travelogues of our anonymous commentator and his companion Robinson, the second one being the awesome Robinson in Space.

Essentially this is a travelogue of London in 1992. It concentrates on locations and issues within London precious to the commentator, and also on the political and social events of the time. The film is shot mostly as stills of the locations visited, and is very well observed. One sequence which lingers for me is the film of the aftermath of the IRA bombs in the City of London at that time, which are eerily beautiful.

The election of 1992 is recorded and commented upon, and the monarchy dont escape unscathed. The writer is very very obviously a socialist, and the commentary is heavily 'Old Labour', but is in turns informative, witty, and thought provoking.

It attempts some major social points, but is preaching to the converted somewhat, this is definitely for the Art House Crowd - You would never see this at a Multiplex. However, is good to see it on film

I gave this 8/10, but Robinson in Space got 10. If you get the chance to see either, do, opportunities are few and far between, and it's made in a very unusual and exiting style.