Blu-ray Review – Pulp: a Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets (2014)
Pulp is partly a concert film of the band’s possible last ever UK gig in their hometown of Sheffield, but it’s also a requiem for the city itself. There have been a few documentaries on Pulp made over the years that are more standard talking heads and archive footage and are worth seeking out on YouTube. This, however, is one of the most unique and interesting takes on the concert film since Jonathan Demme’s seminal Stop Making Sense.
It’s all set on the day of the concert and you meet the inhabitants of Sheffield both Pulp fans and not. The interviews with just random people like the guy outside the market selling newspapers are almost as long as the ones with the band itself. The director Florian Habicht seems as interested in the band, which he clearly loves as the fans and non-fans of Sheffield. It delves into the crazy fanaticism of the female fans of Jarvis Cocker and there is a great line which one of them exclaims, “He’s going to be thrusting on stage”.
The film’s subtitle is “A Film About Life, Death and Supermarkets” and it’s about the celebration of the concert on the day but also about the aging process. Jarvis was already 30 when Pulp became pop stars of the mid 90s. The rest of band mates, with the exception of Mark Webber, are roughly the same age give or take a few years. Jarvis has resorted back to wearing his thick glasses and since his solo career in the mid 00s he has started dressing like a hip geography teacher. One of the film’s most poignant moments is when an old persons choir sings the Pulp hit “Help the Aged”.
The song performances are electrifying; Jarvis remains one of the finest frontmen ever to grace the stage. His fellow band mates say he’s always been an exhibitionist and he is thrusting throughout the gig but it’s most noticeable during the song “This is Hardcore”. Pulp remains the most enduring band to come out of that horrible period known as “Brit-Pop” but in reality they came out of the years of Thatcher and the start of post-punk; Pulp actually formed in 1979 when Jarvis was still at school.
[rating=4]
Ian Schultz
Genre:
Music, Documentary
Distributor:
Soda Pictures
Rating:12
Running Times:90 Minutes
BD Release Date:
14th July 2014 (UK)
Director:
Florian Habicht
Cast:
Nick Banks, Jarvis Cocker, Candida Doyle, Mark Webber, Steve Mackey
Buy:Pulp Special Edition [Blu-ray]
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