Fires Were Started

Ace…

I saw All White in Barking last night - the new film by Marc Isaacs, who’s a really intriguing filmmaker. I pretty much knew in advance I’d like it a lot, being fascinated by both the white working-class and counties just outside London like Essex.

I do realise that’s one of the most patronising sentences you’ll ever read, but I mean it in total honesty - I’ve been following Leeds United since I was 8, and for an experience of white working-class hope, frustration, glory and loss, you can’t better it as a masterclass. Plus I love Cheshunt for walking - it claims it’s in Hertfordshire but it’s so obviously in Essex. And it has the Lee Valley Park, one of the most beautiful secret places for animals wet and dry in the South.

Anyhow, the film was great, but for me, it wasn’t just about Essex worker whites, it was also about Jewish Essexites - like Monty the Holocaust survivor and his buddies and a man called Roger who wasn’t openly outed as Jewish but so obviously was. Their confusion about race and friendliness was very typical of our bredren, and the doc made one of its most poignant jabs when a dinner of Holocaust survivors featured a man stating that Jews must marry Jews because it was simply the right thing to do. It’s not knowing racism, but it is putting up barriers that, especially to outsiders, seemimplausible and cruel. The cycle of exclusion and prejudice, however benignly intended, carries on.

These are really important issues. In a more poetic moment, on the 243 home, I got happy because the doc really celebrated outsiders and non-conformists, albeit a bit unpalatable at time, which is very good indeed. People who say what they think and want the goodness of others to be proven to them rather than assume it. I mean, actually, that rarely works, because if you start suspicious, you’ll probably remain so, but I see nothing wrong with seeing every new person as a potential friend to woo and impress.

Anyhow in other news, my current film obsession is Frownland, about…well, it’s about so much, but the central character is a stuttering troll of a man who lives in a perpetual netherworld of crisis and disgust, in a city that seems to seep hatred. It’s funny, it’s scary and it’s also very very sad for anyone who identifies that yep, big cities are just like that - horrible, dirty and unfriendly. So, Frownland isn’t just one of the best, most unique, films of recent years, it’s also probably my favourite film title ever.

I went to the Serpentine Gallery for the Derek Jarman exhibition at the weekend. It’s an inspiration, I tells ya.

It’s a show to coincide with Isaac Julien’s new doc about Jarman which I have real reservations about, but you can forget about that anyway. The poetry speaks for itself in the show, and I’m glad (especially in light of the documentary’s canonising of Derek J) that nothing fake or reverent gets between you and the beautiful pictures, moving and still.

In fact, it’s a very personal experience in the gallery, which is amazing for the Serpentine, which always feels overcrowded and fussy. You can collapse on puffy cushions and watch Blue in a communal experience or, even better, be surrounded by about 10 screens of varying sizes on which Super 8 films play - and these are just stunning powerful films which overwhlem you with play and liberation and, oooooh, just a total feeling that 98% of other films have no soul and look like they were made by mindless cynics.

And you know what else? So many people there, all immersed in these romantic wonders, all silent but together, all declaring a love for someone the world seems to ignore apart from these retrospectives when he’s remembered again. You feel like you’re in a club of amazing people - people who’ve strolled as if by magic into a new zone of mystery and possibility.

It’s so ace. I love the attention he’s getting - as this nice little film (maybe a bit pointlessly but it don’t matter) says. Now can everyone please remember he’s still relevant for the next few years? And oi, sorry to carp on, but can we make the real tribute to him be a celebration of the free romantic spirits that we still have before they die or give up?

Look, I know I sound curmudgeonly, and  I do hate complaining, but there’s actually easy practical stuff we can do - starting with celebrating and supporting good original stuff, and ignoring bad boring stuff. Otherwise, what’s the point? Shut the cinemas and turn off the TV signal. Can you ever imagine the literary equivalent of Jarman being so subject to the ebb and flow of chattering class opinion?