Re: (313) HIGH TECH SOUL DVD

[Matt Chester \(313\)]

I saw the re-edited version on Sunday, and the director's q+a session 
afterwards.  I didn't see the film last year, when the response from 
everyone I know was overwhelmingly negative, but I didn't find it a bad film 
at all.   It did have a very rough and ready feel (bad lighting, lots of 
shaky camera work), but the flow worked quite well (presumably the result of 
the re-edit).   It's defnitely true that it never went into much depth 
though, and did concentrate almost entirely on the Belleville 3 (plus quite 
a bit with Eddie Fowlkes).  The director was challenged on this afterwards, 
asked why there was little to no footage with the likes of C2 etc, and his 
response was that he wanted to highlight the roots of the sound, and that to 
expand on the second and third generations would take too much time and 
allow less depth on the subject.   I feel it would have been better to 
include more of the later artists though, particularly since they gave a lot 
of screen time to Spectral and Plus 8 but almost none to other local labels.
Which brings me onto my one real major criticism of the film - I thought the 
music chosen was really weak.  Apart from the obvious backdrops of No Ufo's, 
Strings of Life and Big Fun, a lot of the scoring was really dull, and all 
the club footage seemed to be focusing on straight, loopy material, with 
very little variety.  A shame for a project which should be so clearly music 
led.

Overall, it's a nice enough work with plenty of amusing footage, but I don't 
think it'll hold any surprises for those already into this music (the best 
new thing I learned from it is that Belleville is the home of the reknowned 
Strawberry Festival ;-), and perhaps it lacks that extra passion needed to 
turn new people onto this sound...