View Full Version : Movie about Brixton?
I've heard there is a movie (document?) which tells about Brixton. The name of the movie was SW2 (or something like that). I'm wondering where I can find this movie...do u have any ideas?
maybe SW9 (http://www.toxie.com/oldreviews/south_west_9.htm)
deslaugh
29-12-2003, 22:14
do you mean South West 9??
the Guardian DVD rental will probably have it if your local store doesn't.
Mrs Magpie
30-12-2003, 00:44
Originally posted by hile
I've heard there is a movie (document?) which tells about Brixton.
It's Brixton, but not as we know it...a sort of parallel universe Brixton. When characters go from A to B they use weird circuitous routes that don't actually make any geographical sense at all...they also used a lot of local people in the filming but they're in the wrong place, like the Incense Man who doesn't sell joss-sticks in Brixton Station Road, but by the Tube.....look out for Nellie, the old lady who works part-time in the newsagent near the Albert....she's cracking up laughing during the rubber chicken on Atlantic Road scene..........
<edited to add>
Actually, unless you are from Brixton and are looking out for places and faces you know, or are thrilled and excited by drug references in films, it's not really worth watching to be honest........
academia
30-12-2003, 00:50
I'm afraid it's a load of bollocks.
A sad ripoff of the far superior film 'Run Lola Run'.
Nice to see Brixton on film though.
There is at least one and possibly several excellent movies to be made with Brixton as a background, or even as a topic in itself.
And we went through a phase some months back when crews of every nature, from Vogue fashion shoots, to The Bill, and several small scale film units were regularly to be seen working here.
That seems to have ceased now, possibly because of the weather, or the sudden paucity of lottery funding for film school kids.
SW9 was a big missed opportunity. They might just as well have shot it in Islington, or Hackney, or anywhere really, for all the relevance and reality of Brixton captured therein.
I got the DVD out but ended up skimming through it to look at the exteriors. Oddly, the "making of" feature on the disc is more interesting than the film itself.
Possibly one of the worst movies I've ever seen, a great dissapointment.
It's fashionable to slag off that movie if you live here, and the above is right, it's not a great film. It's too long, muddled at the end and the main characters don't have much depth. Plus there are a couple of scenes that are just badly written and badly acted.
BUT, it's no "Notting Hill", a film that portrayed that area very one-sidedly and superficially. You will get a sort of cartoony, celebratory idea of Brixton from it but it does try to deal with some of the various types of people who live here and how they interact. The worst thing about the film is that you don't end up being absorbed into it and caring about what happens to anyone. You don't care because the characters aren't three-dimensional enough.
It has a great soundtrack however and I still feel with more ruthless editing it could have been alot better. It isn't terrible tho, it's just less than the sum of its parts. It's already a little nostalgic too.
:)
isvicthere?
30-12-2003, 14:49
Watch out for the nightclub host on the door of the squat rave and the bailiff in the riot scene right at the end. That's the REAL Brixton.
Innit, HB?
Orang Utan
30-12-2003, 16:04
Oh fuck - it's you innit? Thought I'd seen your face before. :eek:
And Vic is a reporter. The bit outside the club with me talking is OK, but the little bit inside with me, er, "dancing" is a bit wanky. Should have kept still but, hey, there are more wooden performances from some of the supposedly professional actors so it's not too bad!
:)
Im going to have to watch it again now. :)
Shippou-Chan
30-12-2003, 16:53
Check out this sharp and cool looking guy walking outside the Dogstar when that dull and boring character Freddy is walking towards there just after the beginning of the film. :D
SW9 was unsatisfying, however the character of Mitch played by Mark Letheren was definitely the best and most entertaining aspect of the film.
Most of the crew that shot the film were sound as well. :)
Thanks guys even u said it's unsatisfying, a great dissapointment, not worth watching 'unless you are from Brixton and are looking out for places and faces you know'. I've lived in Brixton only for 4 months so I won't recognize anything...But I wanna watch it anyway;)
William of Walworth
30-12-2003, 22:37
Originally posted by academia
I'm afraid it's a load of bollocks.
A sad ripoff of the far superior film 'Run Lola Run'.
Now that was superb film, we saw it recently, so SW9 is likely to be a disappointment if academia and others are right .... perhaps we'd best approach it from the POV of just wanting to have a laugh without too many expectations. And trying to spot vic and hatboy should provide a bit of a diversion at least :D :p
SW9 - a film? Are u sure? oh yes, now i recall. Fruit salad films had their filming HQ for less time than we were given squatting it afterwards ( the old voice building on CHL) - the truly unfortunate thing is that we didnt have a camcorder at that point - would have been great to do a spoof ( erm- real spoof ? erm, perhaps reality show who wants to be a filmstar? type spoof showing -
yup thats right : what really did go on in the basement where the "Acid Lab"(! Ok then...!) was,
Perhaps it was actually perfect that everything that the film tried to portray about Brixton it failed to, apart from the occassional very middle class drug reference ( agrowth area, so I'm told.!) - Personally I thought the geographical repositioning of Brixton was great. Falling out of the dogstar into angeltowns church or rush common or both even - a left and a right!!
Oh such wishful thinking....smashing .......
Seriously though if anyone is up for getting involved with the development and production of a film with slightly more plot ( we'll let it write itself, then...) and at least genuine day to day stars of Brixtons psycho(fill this space to complete word..) yet truly unique strangeness wielding types, drop me a pm
Reckon may end up being a case of film first do story later then film missing bits - unless thats what they did with SW9(!?!?!) Oh well at least the soundtrack wqas good....
EZ & Happy new Year- see u maybe at some point at the SLUR thingy..... Long may I slur my words and spill my speech
I didn't realise Hatboy was IN the film!
Cut to Hendo rushing to Apollo to hire DVD again.
I brought the film just so I could replay Hatboy's dancing over and over again. ;)
The rest of it's shite!
isvicthere?
31-12-2003, 11:37
Originally posted by hatboy
And Vic is a reporter.
No, a bailiff! Otherwise my motivation would have been all wrong.
I'm really pleased to say I saw it before I read any of the insider carping on here (not only this thread, there have been a few). I enjoyed it, like I enjoyed 8mile or American Graffiti. It was a neat bit of escapism set in a little world it constructed for illustration. Unlike the other two I could spot the tears in the geographic and cultural fabric, but so what it's a movie, as much a fantasy as LotR. Naturally those who are closest to the people, the scenes or the places portrayed will spot the sellotape, but watching a movie for entertainment is about suspension of disbelief.
I'll watch it again in a few years, when the dissonances are less obvious and the nostalgia value greater. It'll make me think of the time and the place with affection.
Originally posted by hendo
I didn't realise Hatboy was IN the film!
Cut to Hendo rushing to Apollo to hire DVD again.
It's not just me, there's tons of local nutters, er I mean... charming cameos, in it.
:)
Mrs Magpie
31-12-2003, 13:01
Originally posted by newbie
I'm really pleased to say I saw it before I read any of the insider carping on here
I saw it before any of that too, and I enjoyed seeing Mr Incense Man and Nellie, and I suspend disbelief at the drop of a hat, but it isn't really very good.......extremely ragged story line, one-dimensional characters....and the crack-house was decorated like something from Vogue and there was no shit on the floor.....there is a limit to how much disbelief one can manage to suspend.........
I saw it at the cinema before I really knew Brixton very well and while I did enjoy it, it was also a bit irritating. The constant recapping of the plot and the one dimensonal charicatures were the main things that got on my tits. But it was nice to see a film at least try and capture modern urban innercity life...even though it failed...I've bought it on DVD since I've moved to Brixton(it was only a fiver) and its fun to spot people/places you recognise. But ultimately its a deeply flawed movie..but fair play to them for trying something a bit different.
Although my g/f at the time that I went to see it at the cinema with though it was great - and she works in the media/art field. Go figure...
It's certainly easier to assess now, with some distance. I think they could re-edit it and it could be a whole lot better.
Changing the subject slightly, but about films that do actually get truly under the skin of an area - a few years ago I saw an amazing short film set in Brixton on TV. It was sort of drifty/dream-like and was about an old West Indian bloke, something to do with ancient London being marshland and other sort-of poetic stuff too.
It was very good, really drew you in and had real depth and character. But I can't remember what it was called or anything more definite about it.
Any one any ideas about this?
:)
Another good Brixton-set film was "Storm Damage" by Lennie James, which starred the much (sometimes unfairly) maligned Ashley Walters.
See:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,11255,673052,00.html
And of course there's the Clash's "Rude Boy".
I'd also like to see this, which shows loads of 1970s South London:
From TV Cream film reviews -
"Black Joy - It seems South London has forever existed on screen as a "gritty", downbeat and generally pity-garnering backdrop for tales of poverty, crime and generally wasted life. Not so with this Brixton-based comedy, in which Ben, an innocent Guyanan immigrant pitches up in the neighbourhood and, after a distinctly rude awakening to the trials everyday British urban life (not least an encounter with Vivian Stanshall as a creepily predatory priest in a youth hostel), hitches up with a street-smart mentor. Unfortunately, that mentor happens to be all-round dodgy geezer Dave King, played by Norman Beaton in full-on wide-boy mode, who has trouble enough sorting out his girlfriend (a surprisingly tough turn from Floella Benjamin) and small son, with no prospect of any rest. Amongst the squalid hostels, bedsits and dole offices, however, there's a refreshingly upbeat plot, and the whole thing's played out with a natural charm that's thin on the ground these days. The perfect antidote to both earnest 'housing estate hell' melodrama and the blaxploitation bandwagon."
lang rabbie
31-12-2003, 15:49
Well the BFI have a copy. Black Joy catalogue entry on BFI website (http://www.bfi.org.uk/collections/catalogues/ethnic/details.php?filmid=43)
Could the editor get the Ritzy to screen it in combination with one one of his upcoming club nights?
William of Walworth
31-12-2003, 17:37
Originally posted by lang rabbie
Well the BFI have a copy. Black Joy catalogue entry on BFI website (http://www.bfi.org.uk/collections/catalogues/ethnic/details.php?filmid=43)
Could the editor get the Ritzy to screen it in combination with one one of his upcoming club nights?
Brilliant suggestion -- I love retro Brit films like that! Sounds good and Viv Stanshell (RIP) was a comedy genius ...
Mrs Magpie
01-01-2004, 01:09
I'd buy tickets for that too...................
As would I. Floella Benjamin in a gritty urban drama?
Blimey.
Tricky Skills
01-01-2004, 15:22
There' also Paris Brixton (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0141710/) - a short that was filmed close to CHL.
Being only 10 mins or so in duration, there isn't much of a plot; bloke breaks into girls flat and they start a relationship.
That's about it I'm afraid.
I saw that Paris Brixton film. It was total shit. Just some stuck-up cow romanticising Brixton and floating thru on her way to being stuck-up and clueless somewhere else. It really was insulting and utter crap.
From Britfilms.com:
"It's a liaison dangereuse: Amanda, a fantasist besotted with Baudelaire and nouvelle vague cinema; Mike, tough but sensitive..."
Oh piss off. :p
squidlet
01-01-2004, 18:28
Originally posted by hendo
As would I. Floella Benjamin in a gritty urban drama?
Blimey.
But with Norman Beaton ! Now, he didn't have far to travel to get on set, as he used to live on the top end of Coldharbour Lane (the flats above where the print shop is I think)
More film / TV trivia - there was an episode of 'Hazel' filmed on Villa Rd in the 70's, which also did weird geographic things. A bloke jumped out of a back window straight into the middle of the market
"Storm Damage" was brilliant, wish they'd show it again.
More on "Black Joy" here:
http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1987/09/254766.html
Can any of you reading this get this movie? I can't find it anywhere. Anyone got a tape of it? Me and a few friends have wanted to see it for ages.
:)
PS It's 1977 not 87 as that link states.
Or a tape of Hazel, whatever that is.
shaundey
04-01-2004, 10:46
best film i've ever seen featuring brixton is "babylon", early 80's starring brinsley forde out of aswad. in fact one of the best films i've ever seen full stop.
isvicthere?
05-01-2004, 11:14
I saw "Black Joy" in the cinema when it was on general release. Being a country bumpkin from Hampshire I couldn't understand a word of it. Many years later I saw it on C4 and was amused to see that the 7 year-old rascal in the film was none other than the later to be Kelvin in EastEnders.
isvicthere?
05-01-2004, 11:15
Originally posted by shaundey
best film i've ever seen featuring brixton is "babylon", early 80's starring brinsley forde out of aswad. in fact one of the best films i've ever seen full stop.
Yeah, I agree. Top film - also featuring Karl Howman, later of Brush Strokes and currently of detergent advert fame.
Review of Babylon from Movie Database:
"Excellent film about Rastafarians, whites, and everyone else in the reggae underbelly of London. Rosso manages to cram a lifetime of excitement into 95 minutes. You'll recognize no one in the movie and that's what will make it seem more like a documentary than a drama. Although racial tension enters into the story, it is by no means the raison d'etre and it is treated as an element of a drama, not as the core. The story has to do with two rival musical groups battling against each other in a reggae competition. The characters who interact with the protagonist (Forde) and the events that take place (murder, mugging, beating, mayhem, etc.) are all so real that everyone connected with the movie must be congratulated for slicing life so well. Regrettably, the odds of seeing this interesting film uncut on TV are slim and the odds of finding it in any theater are even slimmer. A compelling look at a world most of us would never know."
Any one got Babylon on tape? :)
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