REBEL DREAD - Glasgow Film Festival review

Rebel Dread tells the story of photographer, DJ, musician and filmmaker Don Letts. Fronted by the man himself, this documentary charts the many twists and turns throughout Letts's life that saw him go from manager of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's shop, Acme Attractions, to touring the world as a filmmaker & musician, and beyond.

It's become something of a cliche to soundtrack any archival footage of London in the 1970s with The Clash's London Calling, but for once given Letts's connection with the band (directing a number of music videos for them, including London Calling), it's appropriate. Over images of civil unrest, Letts narrates his early life in Brixton where he immediately stood out as a flashy dresser and cool looking guy, vying for and getting the attention of the local cultural elite. It's a lively retelling of his life story, from chubby teenager (or as his brother Desmond ruthlessly describes, "a fat motherfucker") to DJ at The Roxy at the height of punk, to eventually filming the bands on stage and turning that into a highly successful career directing music videos, until Letts decided he wanted a piece of that stardom, co-founding Big Audio Dynamite with ex-The Clash member, Mick Jones.

An affectionate look at Letts' life and varied career - where the film falters is the unavoidable problem of having Letts tell his own story. Sure, he's in the position to tell it better than anyone else, but there's the inescapable feeling that he's told these stories so many times that these are the carefully curated versions of the truth. He's a great orator and fantastic at building his own myth, but serving as exec producer and main storyteller, Letts is in clear control of what information were given, and crucially, what we're not. It's not completely a self-aggrandising, back-slapping affair - most notably when Letts reckons with his role as an absent parent whilst touring the world, coupled with his infidelity - but it teeters on the precipice of it, mercifully pulled away at the right moment with additional important voices from his life, chief among them Mick Jones, and Letts's former partner, Jeannette Lee of Public Image Ltd.

At its most revealing and personal when it gets to Letts search for his roots, kickstarted by a trip to Jamaica with John Lydon, it's here where Letts's cultural commentator mask slips the most, offering something that goes some way into distilling the man and his relentless drive for success, approval and legitimacy as a Black, British man working with the biggest names in punk. He's a genuinely fascinating subject, with a life like no other that has almost been engineered by Letts by chance, thanks to his unwavering bravery and ability to build upon the connections he's made in his life, such as how he became friends with Bob Marley in London, largely through force of willing it to happen.

In a career that saw Letts take a long time to decide what path he wanted to follow - DJ, band manager, photographer, musician, filmmaker - this film establishes that he was all those things at any given moment, and capable of doing it well. He estimates he made around 400 music videos for PiL, The Clash and more - let's not forget Musical Youth's Pass the Dutchie - and Rebel Dread proves that Letts's has an astounding level of intelligence, creatively and bravery. I certainly wouldn't write him off playing another important role in music, should he choose he wants it.

Verdict

3/5

Rebel Dread screened as part of the Glasgow Film Festival and is now on general release. More information about the festival can be found here.

POLY STYRENE: I AM A CLICHÉ - Glasgow Film Festival review

As the legendary frontwoman for punk band X-ray Spex, lead singer Poly Styrene was known for her bold sense of fashion as well as being one of the most prominent people of colour within the punk scene. Leaving behind boxes of photos and newspaper clippings after her death in 2011, her daughter Celeste Bell uses this archive along with excerpts from Poly's diaries to try and understand more about her mother and their often fraught relationship, and the issues that caused her to kill off her band at the height of their success.

Written and co-directed by Celeste (alongside Paul Sng), I Am A Cliché follows Poly's journey from Brixton teenager to performing on Top of the Pops and at New York's iconic CBGB's, as she confronted cruel jibes about her appearance, racist mindsets and her own mental health issues that saw her admitted to a psychiatric ward. Born Marianne Elliott-Said in 1957 to a white British mother and black Somalian father, Poly placed an ad in Melody Maker to form X-Ray Spex after seeing Sex Pistols on her 19th birthday in 1976, adopting her "plastic, synthetic" pseudonym by looking through the Yellow Pages. This was also a time when the racist attitudes of the National Front were prevalent (as well as certain factions of the punk crowd), and the film looks at Poly's identity issues as a mixed race woman - using the lyrics for her songs Identity and Half Caste - along with taunts her about her curly hair, the braces on her teeth, and her unique fashion sense that involved brightly coloured plastic and vintage materials clashing together.

The film uses new audio interviews with performers influenced by Poly's work, such as Kathleen Hanna and Neneh Cherry, and admirers and contemporaries such as Vivienne Westwood, John Robb, Don Letts, Jonathan Ross (whose first ever gig was X-Ray Spex at The Roxy) and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore (who saw them perform at CBGB's). Also included are some of her former bandmates, Lora Logic and Paul Dean, who talk about the band's musical journey and Poly's lyrics, and how they were unaware of the extent of the psychological problems she was facing at the time, downplaying the hallucinations she was having. These effects of these ongoing mental health problems - misdiagnosed as schizophrenic, she was eventually found to be bipolar -  is something Celeste speaks about firsthand, waking up to find her mother stood at the foot of her bed.

With Celeste as our guide walking in her mother's footsteps, due to her resemblance to her mother it's almost like we're seeing a ghost re-enact scenes from a former life. The film's masterstroke is using actor Ruth Negga to narrate pages from Poly's diaries, allowing us to build a far deeper connection than would be possible through just the use of old clips and photos. At the core of this film is that connection between mother and daughter (Celeste states at the start of the film that "People often ask me if she was a good mum"), and the narration from both women feels like we are hearing from both sides. Whereas Celeste can now look back on her life with her mother and the embarrassment she felt at her DIY fashion sense when out shopping with her "what an ungrateful brat I was" , Poly can also talk about how she felt being criticised by audiences for her looks (with the record label slimming down her image on their album cover) and then suddenly called a sex symbol, a label she rebelled against by shaving all of her hair off in Johnny Rotten's bathroom.

There's a sombre tone to the film that makes it extremely moving as Celeste continues on her journey through her mother's life, from finding religion in the Hare Krishna movement to custody problems to efforts to reconcile before she passed with a shared love of music. It's an extraordinarily revealing documentary that paints Poly/Marianne as a troubled woman, not given the support she needed in an unforgiving music scene. It's a powerful film that could only be made by someone close to her, allowing Celeste to deal with a lot of her own trauma from her relationship with her mother, whilst also showing her to be the trailblazing punk icon she really was.

Verdict

4/5

Glasgow Film Festival runs between 24th February and 7th March. All films are released at different times, whereafter they can be rented for three days at £9.99 each.

Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché is on general release from 5th March, and can be pre-ordered via the Modern Films website where you can help support your local independent cinema.