London: The Modern Babylon (Julien Temple documentary)

MakeEmLaugh

Currently available on Netflix, an interesting film from Julien Temple, the man behind one of my favourite documentaries, The Filth and the Fury. There is some (very brief) overlap between that film and this: the presence of Malcolm McLaren in a couple of moments, as well as footage of the punk movement of the late 1970s.

Really, though, this is a less focused product, beginning with a montage assembled in reverse-chronological order back to the turn of the twentieth century. Though the footage is interesting, Temple makes the painfully clichéd mistake of scoring the scene to The Clash's London Calling, perhaps the least imaginative choice possible.

Because there is so much history to take in, Temple never spends longer than a few minutes on a subject, be it the Suffragette movement (with footage of Elaine Marsh), the Battle of Cable Street (when fascist Oswald Mosley and his supporters clashed with anti-fascist protestors), the Blitz, West Indian immigration in the 1950s, Irish labourers building the city (second-generation Irish artist Michael Landy chips in) and the 2005 bombings.

As in The Filth and the Fury, Temple splices in scenes from films (such as Peeping Tom and The Krays) with newsreel footage.

All in all, a good documentary, though one that perhaps will make you want to research its subjects more closely, rather than one that gives any great insight into the city.