Photographer Owen Richards has just emailed me and suggested I take a look at this film by Christopher Petit.

RADIO ON (1979) is described as a post-punk journey through 70s England. It’s become a cult film since its initial release and some claim it’s one of the most striking feature debuts in British cinema. Co-produced by Wim Wenders and featuring Sting’s first film performance, RADIO ON is austere in narrative and captures the lurking disenchantment of the British youth movements of the time.

RADIO ON was photographed in monochrome by Martin Schaefer (Wenders’ cinematographer), and its soundtrack featured tracks by Bowie, Kraftwerk, Lene Lovich, Ian Dury and Wreckless Eric. Petit’s anti-road movie follows a London DJ (David Bearnes) as he travels to Bristol to investigate the mysterious death of his brother, and offers a unique, compelling and even mythic vision of a late 1970s England.

It’s been described as “a subtle, masterfully understated meditation on late 1970s Britain. Its loose, barely-existent narrative is told through a rich monochrome print of ghostly whites and glossy blacks: presenting fractured, dehumanising Ballardian urban backdrops alongside gloomy, ethereal rural landscapes. Resonating panning shots of cityscapes, saturated with the detritus of defunct nineteenth century industry, alongside boarded-up, dilapidated buildings, abandoned petrol stations and empty hotels all contribute to a profound and poignant sense of simultaneous wonder and dread. Beautifully crafted static shots emphasise the empty meaning of modern existence through images of blank, static television screens, monotonous flickering marquees and lurching fuel-pump dials.”

You can watch a trailer here.

I’m going to add it to my viewing list!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 4:23 pm and is filed under MISCELLANEOUS, OTHER STUDIES. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.