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. 

WHITE RIOT review

Set against a backdrop of a rising right wing political ideology and how members of the punk, reggae and ska music scenes fought against it through the Rock Against Racism campaign, Rubika Shah's White Riot follows the creation of the Temporary Hoarding magazine by a group of artists and journalists, and the triumphant Rock Against Racism concert they organised when tensions were at their highest.

Although the Victoria Park Rock Against Racism concert is the main event, this is not in any means a concert film; in fact, the actual concert only occupies about ten minutes of the running time towards the end. Shah's documentary is more concerned with exploring the political atmosphere at the time that would necessitate the need for the concert, with the shameful views of Enoch Powell and National Front leader Martin Webster allowed on TV along with shows like It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Love Thy Neighbour and the Black and White Minstrel Show that went towards creating a nation of disenfranchised white youths, willing to blame people based on skin colour alone. 

It's got a hell of a pounding, propulsive soundtrack, including The Clash's London Calling and the eponymous White Riot (band member Topper Headon is on hand to stress that the far-right faction that chanted along to the latter obviously didn't listen too closely to the lyrics), Poly Styrene of X-Ray Specs, Sham 69, and the now unfortunately, ironically named Tom Robinson Band. It makes no bones about outing the views a number of famous musicians aired at the time, with 'the great coloniser' of Blues, Eric Clapton spouting some horrendous racist remarks, and punk icon Johnny Rotten coming out of it pleasingly well by saying he "despise(s)" the National Front at a time when punk was readily adopting nazi uniforms and iconography.

But separate from all the celebrity musician interviews and footage of riots and protests on the nation's streets, the core of the film is the grass roots efforts of a small number of people, including the co-founder of Rock Against Racism (RAR) and the politics and music magazine that documented their efforts, Temporary Hoarding, Red Saunders. Saunders, a photographer and sometime performance artist, is the chief contributor to the film and documentary gold who put himself in the heat of the action serving as the frontman for the RAR campaign. Now in his 70s and sporting a mighty beard, it's the interviews with him that drive the film, whether it be rediscovering old issues of Temporary Hoarding that helped reach out to the youth before the NF got their hands on them, old TV interviews between him and Janet Street Porter or him posting letters in the NME telling Clapton what he thinks of him ("who shot the sheriff Eric? It sure as hell wasn't you"). The importance of Temporary Hoarding and the artists and writers who contributed cannot be understated, and even the punk aesthetics of the magazine have clearly been an influence on the visual design of this film.

As the film heads towards its finale, with prominent and influential musicians willing to attend protests (although it's noted that The Clash were "too cool to hold placards") and perform at the Victoria Park concert, there's the hopeful sense that the movement was winning out against the fascists, as can be seen be the sheer number of attendees to the pre-concert march from Trafalgar Square to Victoria Park. Saunders told the local council that they expected 500 people to turn up to the gig. Actual numbers vary depending on which person you speak to, but safe to say that number was eclipsed.

What's most concerning about Shah's documentary (that I first saw when it premiered at last year's London Film Festival where it won the Grierson Award), is that 40 years after the events of the film and in the 11 months since I first saw it, the issues it raises about right-wing rhetoric and the excessive force used against peaceful protesters by a biased police force have only become more applicable to our times. It was a topical film then, it feels vital now. It's not a film that's factoid heavy but that is unapologetically political, utilising its wealth of archive footage to show how the NF were able to gain traction among the youth of the day, but also how a combination of great music, truth and the power of protest can be an unstoppable force.

Verdict

5/5

White Riot is in cinemas from Friday.