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GLASTONBURY

 ABOUT THE MOVIE


Genre:
Documentary/Music
Director: Julien Temple
Rating: M18 (Nudity)
Year Made: 2006

 

 


 SPECIAL FEATURES


- NIL

 

 


 TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS


Languages:
English
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: 16x9 Letterbox
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0
Running Time: 2 hrs 18 mins
Region Code: 3
Distributor: Comstar

 

 

SYNOPSIS:  

So much has been said about the planet's biggest most mythologised music festival that the prospects of a filmmaker adding anything new would seem slim. Yet Julian Temple has fashioned a film that is a sprawling, exuberant and kaleidoscopic as the festival it celebrates, a quicksilver collage of performance footage, home movies, interviews with avuncular promoter Michael Eavis and outtakes from Nicolas Roeg's film of the original 1971 event.

At heart, Glastonbury is a film about English counterculture with Eavis emerging as a decent man constantly forced to reconcile his idealism with brute reality.

For every symbol of communal euphoria there is an image of strife or commercial compromise: a would-be gatecrasher nursing a bleeding head after a run-in with security, a Natwest flag fluttering sinisterly above a crashpoint. "I miss the travellers", Eavis reflects. "We lost the edge, really".

Such clear-eyed honesty gives the film unexpected emotional clout, helped immeasurably by the use of music. The closing montage soundtracked by David Bowie's anthemic Heroes is so stirring that seasoned festivalgoers may well find their eyes moisturing. Eavis calls Glastonbury "a survival of good over evil". That's high praise for a weekend of people getting off their heads in a field but it's a measure of Temple's achievement that you'd be hard-pressed to disagree.

MOVIE REVIEW

The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts was first held in 1970 at Worthy Farm, six miles east of Glastonbury in South West England. Year after year, beatniks and rockers looking for pop cult status make their way across the greenfield land and mud ocean to let loose and make music. When the festival took a hiatus in 2006, rock documentary maker Julien Temple took it upon himself to make a movie about the music festival.

He should have made a mix-tape of live concert performances instead.

Farmer and concert organizer Michael Eavis is not a particularly engaging subject. And a montage of weirdoes from the scraggy-haired 70’s to the millennium Silent Disco-goers should not exceed the 5 minute mark. What we get, instead, is a humbling 138-minute visual homage to old hippies; bare naked asses and loads of spaced out folks. Radiohead and David Bowie are great and their performances should not be interrupted (for extended time intervals) by mere mortals smoking in muddy teepees. Somewhat overwhelming yet underwhelming if you ask me.

SPECIAL FEATURES :

No special features.

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Footage shot for this film is beautifully transferred and juxtaposed with the low-fidelity outtakes from the fans and archives. No complaints here.

MOVIE RATING:



DVD RATING :

Review by Lim Mun Pong

 
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This review is made possible with the kind support from Comstar

 


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