24/11/2007

Known as the documentarist of the Sex Pistols and a real admirer of punk culture, Julien Temple here pays tribute to Joe Strummer, the iconoclast, wild and rebellious lead singer of The Clash who died five years ago.

This could have been an exhaustive biopic, but although it spans Strummer’s life and artistic evolutions, Temple also explores the inner life of this fascinating character.
A fully nuanced portrait, The Future is Unwritten [+see also:
trailer
film profile] describes Strummer as an occasional coward and narcissist, albeit also someone who was concerned with others. Combining archive footage, interviews of various personalities around a campfire (reminding one of the Glastonbury festival concerts at the end of Strummer’s life) and impulsive, forceful editing, Temple closely follows the singer’s path from his first concerts with ‘The 101ers’ in squats to the growing Clash success story.
Strummer’s rebellious, insurgent temper is reinforced by inserted images from riots, boxing matches, and even extracts of an animation adapted from Orwell’s The Animal Farm - all symbolising the struggle against all kinds of oppressive authority systems, such as US imperialism or the police.

Julien Temple subtly creates a wide and eclectic artistic universe close to Strummer’s spirituality and energy, combining images in an astonishing mosaic. Temple also accords real importance to the second part of Strummer’s life, more calm and spiritual, as a counterpoint to his youth. As he deepens the complexity of this punk icon, the whole documentary becomes a wild and authentic journey, from the aggressive fire of “London burning” to the peaceful Rastafarian flames. Far from the punk slogan “no future”, the future is unwritten, and as Temple concludes, quoting Joe Strummer: “People can change anything they want and that means everything in the world.”