Blank City ? review

Seventies New York's motley collection of artists, musicians and film-makers come out to play in a fascinating tribute to a terminally cool sceneThe no-wave underground cinema of late 70s New York gets a work-out in this admiring documentary by French-born director C�line Danhier, who can't have been out of nappies when the whole thing was going on. By all accounts, New York was a wild and scary place in the late 70s, particularly the Lower East Side and Alphabet City, where a motley collection of artists, musicians and wannabe film-makers washed up, often squatting in the same dilapidated warehouse loft. Danhier's film is an entertaining examination of a chronically self-involved group of people looking back at their terminally hip former selves: some, like Nick Zedd, still living the scene as if it were still happening. Of the faces on show, only Jim Jarmusch and Steve Buscemi managed to maintain anything like the semblance of a long-term film-making career; the others have mostly wandered off into the twilight world of avant-garde, or achieved cult status in one or other of the bands associated with the scene (see 2007 doco Kill Your Darlings for the musical half of no wave). The films emerge as fascinating period pieces filled with too-cool-for-school 70s types; but the most potent figure in the film is New York itself, decrepit but glowering angrily in the background.Rating: 3/5DocumentaryNew YorkAndrew Pulverguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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