Video Reviews

Undercurrents 5

Squall 13, Summer 1996, pg. 61.

Undercurrents returns with its fifth outing into the tragicomic world of grassroots activism.

Featuring: “My Favourite Places’, Sir George Young’s nightmarish shopping trip in Oxford, the Barbie Liberation Organisation’s use of “corrective surgery” to confront sexism, and video footage smuggled out from Reliance Security.

In “Bugger Off!” a video activist doorsteps MI5, demanding to see his files. “Celtic Enemy” provides a moving account of a Welsh community’s struggle to resist opencast mining. “The Blut Geil Case”: chronicles a battle by Swiss anarchists to prevent police censorsip of their home-made slasher-movie “Blut Geil” (Cop Eaters).

With news shorts, hoax adverts, and a Newbury-rap video stitching together the central pieces, this is the niftiest little video feast so far. The sustained crash-bang-wallop that has afflicted previous offerings, where endless slogans, canners, smashings and grabbings seem to melt into one, has been avoided. Number 5 is easy with the rants, well-paced and culturally-kicking 71 minutes of pure watching pleasure.

Available at £10.50 (waged), £7.50 (unwaged) from:
Undercurrents - Box 16b, Cherwell Street, Oxford OX4 1BG.

Neil Goodwin