The first Chris Petit film I watched was London Orbital a complement to Ian Sinclair's book of the same name. A much later film.
I grew up near South Mymm's services and was in my later teens early twenties '89 through '02, so it was good to live there given the times.
The Scarp (area covered by Nick Papadimitriou's book of that name) was my hunting ground. As this is a road movie I remember buying an old Cortina from a scrapyard off the road by the Mill Hill school playing fields for £100, and then later that day getting it to do over a ton down the A10. That kind of 'skylarking' by vehicle.
I'd already seen that Patrik Keiller Robinson trilogy, so I had enjoyed watching Mr Petit's London Orbital soon after.
I'm also a fan of the docu-film Patience: After Seebald, and also the Irish film about a sound recordist by Pat Collins 'Silence'
And I am a big Get Carter fan too.
I have also previously worked with suicidal people for the charities Rethink and Mind as well as the NHS (and sadly lost some too, an old school fried I hadn't seen since '91, took his own life two years ago, despite my work since I saw him, it still left me taken aback how the loss got to me)
Needless to say this grounding, this groundwork for a metaphysics of watching Radio On, leaves me to say this about the film:
The pace, the distracted 'ennui' and the relaxed, melancholy if slightly world weary for characters so young, of this film with periods of mild tension, distant conversation between passing characters in a moderately bleak world, is well...
Throughly enjoyable!
A very different take to suicide to Norwegian Wood, depsite the similar tempo.
Both have good soundtracks!
I grew up near South Mymm's services and was in my later teens early twenties '89 through '02, so it was good to live there given the times.
The Scarp (area covered by Nick Papadimitriou's book of that name) was my hunting ground. As this is a road movie I remember buying an old Cortina from a scrapyard off the road by the Mill Hill school playing fields for £100, and then later that day getting it to do over a ton down the A10. That kind of 'skylarking' by vehicle.
I'd already seen that Patrik Keiller Robinson trilogy, so I had enjoyed watching Mr Petit's London Orbital soon after.
I'm also a fan of the docu-film Patience: After Seebald, and also the Irish film about a sound recordist by Pat Collins 'Silence'
And I am a big Get Carter fan too.
I have also previously worked with suicidal people for the charities Rethink and Mind as well as the NHS (and sadly lost some too, an old school fried I hadn't seen since '91, took his own life two years ago, despite my work since I saw him, it still left me taken aback how the loss got to me)
Needless to say this grounding, this groundwork for a metaphysics of watching Radio On, leaves me to say this about the film:
The pace, the distracted 'ennui' and the relaxed, melancholy if slightly world weary for characters so young, of this film with periods of mild tension, distant conversation between passing characters in a moderately bleak world, is well...
Throughly enjoyable!
A very different take to suicide to Norwegian Wood, depsite the similar tempo.
Both have good soundtracks!