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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