I finally got around to watching Chris Petit’s ‘Radio On’ the other day.
It’s a very, very British road movie, which I find fascinating in its ability to combine a new wave soundtrack (Wreckless Eric, Bowie, Ian Dury, Kraftwerk etc) with a kind of post war 50’s austerity and cinematic noir.
I kept expecting Terence Stamp or Diana Dors to pop up in one of the monochrome set pieces (or maybe Norman Wisdom).
I caught the Petit name first of all in the novels of Iain Sinclair who I’ve been reading voraciously since around 2001.
After watching the movie I can see where Sinclair got his psychogeographical leitmotifs from: the bleak industrial landscapes, the obsessive pursuit, gloomy pubs, the cold alien noir of the city bustle, glimpsed graffiti and the overwhelming feeling of being unanchored and lost in all the fleeting signs and symbolism.
The film was shot in black and white, and released in ’79 - just before the evil empire of Thatcherism rolled over the country like dark cloud.
Petit himself said in an interview, the film is a kind of omen for what was to come.
I was reminded whilst watching it of Sinclair’s ‘Heart of darkness’ device, whereby the narrator takes on the Marlowe persona: a stranger in a strange land where the everyday landscape and customs of the indigenous people, become, for the seeker, detached and surreal.
The whole film is available on Youtube. Favourite clip:
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