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IMDb > Radio On (1980)
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Overview

User Rating:
5.9/10   173 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Up 35% in popularity this week. See rank & trends on IMDbPro.
Director:
Christopher Petit
Writer:
Christopher Petit (screenplay)
Contact:
View company contact information for Radio On on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
4 July 1980 (West Germany) more
Genre:
Drama more
Plot:
Set in 1970's Britain, a factory worker drives from London to Bristol to investigate his brother's death. The purpose of his trip is offset by his encounters with a series of odd people. | add synopsis
NewsDesk:
Weekend Reading: Color in Black-and-White
 (From Rope Of Silicon. 5 June 2009, 9:13 PM, PDT)

User Comments:
Looking differently, deeper... more

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)
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Additional Details

Runtime:
104 min | Sweden:102 min
Country:
UK | West Germany
Language:
English | German
Sound Mix:
Mono
Certification:
Iceland:L | Singapore:R21 | UK:18 (re-rating) | UK:X (original rating)
Filming Locations:
Bristol, England, UK more

Fun Stuff

Movie Connections:
Featured in Interview with Chris Petit and Keith Griffiths (2008) (V) more
Soundtrack:
Frozen Years more

FAQ

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9 out of 12 people found the following comment useful:-
Looking differently, deeper..., 5 January 2005
9/10
Author: Tom May (joycean_chap@hotmail.com) from Sunderland, England

"Why do the English want to live by the sea?"

"Last resort...? (silence) It's never as good as they think it will be..."

Saw this last evening at the local arts cinema in Newcastle. And what a magnificent British art film this is; ex-Time Out film critic Christopher Petit, spurred by the twin influences of the road movies of Wim Wenders (co-producer) and the incipient post-punk scene. There are scenes, glimmers and furrows which sometimes only later come through to haunt the mind; the whole stands as a brilliantly paced and sustained aesthetic reflection of decay and despondency. The Britain of 1979 is often simultaneously beguiling and deadening; great symbolic tower-blocks on the way out of London, desolate countryside heading west... so much that you feel could give root to extensive, restlessly ruminative Iain Sinclair or Paul Morley annotation.

This film is indeed about more than 'plot', though it hangs on the path of a man who is shown going about his typical, elliptical life in London, where he seems to be a holed-up DJ for some obscure station. His 'show' is jarringly shown playing in an industrial work setting; presumably to those who cannot hear - is this use of music perhaps not so far from the choric Alan Price in "O Lucky Man!"? After a time, he begins a car journey to Bristol in search of 'answers' regarding the unexplained death of his brother; which is possibly, though never definitively, linked with a pornographic movie racket - reported in radio news bulletins - in the West Country. I could make few spoilers that would seem significant, though points do jab out at you; particularly in the sense that expected explanation or fruition occasionally seem on the cards. But, hauntingly, we are left to puzzle things out ourselves; which may well be a pointless task if one is to think in usual, lateral patterns...

The main actor does a wonderfully minimal job, as is best with this sort of project; a face that moves only a certain amount, and when needed; above all, a face that reveals itself as the blank canvas mask that we alone can choose or otherwise to feel the emotions through. He is a guide, but rightfully not one we are encouraged to easily identify with; though at times, I certainly can. The landscape, the lyrically still, gently moving camera, the haunting, 'dehumanized' pop strains of Bowie, Lovich, Kraftwerk; these phenomena bring out our responses... Or rather the cumulative effect does. It is only perhaps broken by the unnecessary interlude with Sting, which shows the man with a good deal of smugness, even back then and within this film. This is unfortunate considering it follows relatively soon after the slow jukebox tableau, the camera tapering around the pub for the whole duration of a Wreckless Eric song on the jukebox. So little happens that the mere act of one figure hitherto seated getting up and leaving the establishment takes on implausibly moving dimensions.

Surely it was not just me who was moved impossibly by the sudden move to a hauntingly wistful bucolic scene? This fairly brief shot is lit and framed magisterially, contrasting with the previous Beckettian Suicide-comedy on the cliff-top, with Kraftwerk's "Ohm Sweet Ohm" spiralling on to heights of tinpot-music box melancholia. This film marks out an approach that sadly was not taken up in British film-making more widely; it takes its time to get precisely nowhere, and yet everywhere, in comparison with so many things we call 'films'.

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Message Boards

Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Radio On (1980)
Recent Posts (updated daily)User
grafitti on the wall - 'free ........' simonc39
What is the Bristol hotel in the film? pottedstu
What side was the brother on? calvinoshea
What were the German women saying? calvinoshea
When will this be released on DVD ? CliffLunt
nearly 30 years later sambartram
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