ithankyou: On the road… Radio On (1979), BFI blu-ray, out now

Sunday 16 May 2021

On the road… Radio On (1979), BFI blu-ray, out now

Roadrunner, roadrunner

Going faster miles an hour

Gonna drive past the Stop 'n' Shop

With the radio on

Listening to writer and director Christopher Petit talk about the making of his debut film, you get the feeling that he went with his gut feel and rode his luck but he had a lot going for him and it’s what makes this film so enduring and worthy of repeated views. Whatever he says, the former Time Out film critic must have charm to burn as he not only persuaded Wim Wenders to get involved in the project as Associate Producer he also got the notoriously hard to pin down Kraftwerk to allow him use of their songs for something like £50 each.

The piece de resistance was also getting David Bowie to let him use all of the Anglo-German Heroes/Helden for the gloriously murky yet revealing opening single take; one that still sends shivers down the spine and sets the tone for the entire work. Petit also deserves huge credit for his choice of music that is both of its time and of the future (of its time) as well as having emerged over the last four decades as a large part of the actual present. Kraftwerk and Bowie are not just of importance to mine and Petit’s generation but also to the artists that came later – it’s hard to think of hip-hop, IDM, techno and so on without the former but also the latter (his work with Eno in Berlin) whilst the Thin White Duke set the template for every Madonna, Gaga, Monae and other progressive pop artistes were to follow.

As a musician turned actor, I’m not sure Petit would include Sting in that bracket, but his contribution here is not only completely on point, a garage attendant riffing beautifully on Three Steps to Heaven, but also a talent that would endure. Like him or not – and come on he’s worked with Miles Davis and written Every Breath You Take, one of the most misunderstood stalker songs in pop history – Sting has endured and reached the top of the pops at European Super League levels. Something else here, now and then.

That's Robert's 1960 Rover 80 P4 next to Gordon Sumner...

Radio On feels fresh too as it’s unconventional and lose narrative still defies easy categorisation and there’s a question in my mind at least, of how much actually happens and how much is actually in the mind of the main protagonist, Robert (David Beames) as he travels from London to Bristol, via the more picturesque and, indeed picaresque… A4, listening to Radio-Aktivität, Die Mensch-Maschine and Trans Europa Express on his cassette.

The tapes are a present from Robert’s brother who, we gradually learn has killed himself, leading Robert to make the trip from Camden to Bristol to find out more. He’s making a journey of mourning but also at a time when he knows his life must change. Robert is a late-night DJ, for the United Biscuits Network, broadcasting to their factories and taking requests for Help Me Make it Through the Night, only to replace it with something “better”, Sweet Gene Vincent by Ian Dury and the Blockheads. He soundtracks his life as he does his programme and musical threads tie everything together from the autobahn hypnosis of Kraftwerk to the plaintive desolation of Wreckless Eric and his classic, Whole Wide World and Devo’s magnificently dislocated version of (Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.

On the Westway

As a score, it doesn’t get much better for those of us who grew up on the new wave NME, Melody Maker and Sounds. But it’s not nostalgia that holds it up but the freshness of the conception and what feels like a largely improvised script. Shooting in 35mm black and white using Wender’s cameraman Martin Schäfer, gives the story a timeless feel as you focus on unknowable interior worlds, bleak surroundings often in the darkness, leading you for clues in the faces of the actors. There’s a theme of miscommunication throughout that reflects Robert’s inner state and as odd things keep on happening to him, he takes it all in his uncertain stride. He’s breaking up with his girlfriend (Sue Jones-Davies, always so strikingly frank) who when asked by him what is wrong, shakes her head and simply says, “nothing, only you…”

Driving out to Bristol, he pops into a pint and some Wreckless Eric on the jukebox only to find a Scottish squaddie (Andrew Byatt) who, seemingly without asking, has decided he’s coming for a lift. Gradually he reveals his story from Glasgow dole to the army and then the two four-month tours of Northern Ireland that see him suffering what would now be diagnosed with PTSD. He gets increasingly unreasonable and, as they drive past Silbury Hill, demands that Robert stop the car and drive off road, Beames knew nothing about this at the time and looks visibly unnerved. Robert makes good his escape after a lot of screen bashing before driving on to his meeting with the Eddie Cochran fan.

A discomfort break at Silsbury Hill

Eddie and Gene Vincent both died in the same taxi crash after gig at Bristol Hippodrome in 1960 and, apparently Dave Dee – of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich fame – was one of the policemen that attended the crash. He later said that he started learning the guitar by using Cochran's impounded Gretsch over several nights at the station… this story just keeps getting weirder.

Back on the road, Robert makes it to Bristol where he finds his brother’s ex-girlfriend, Kathy (Sandy Ratcliff) in their flat. Again, very little is said and we get no closer to any answers. Robert than forms the most constructed relationship of the entire film when he meets two German women outside a Bristol disco – which is playing Lena Lovich’s single Lucky Number. He gives them a lift and begins to bond with one, Ingrid, played by the luminous Lisa Kreuzer who, a frequent Wenders collaborator, was in the film on his request. She’s a class act, and easily the star performer here as a woman in search of her two-year old daughter, now living with her ex-partner.

Lisa Kreuzer

For a long time this sub-plot looks like it may well provide the film’s closing direction but Peter is not done journeying yet and as so neatly summed up in the innovative video essay in the extras from Wire’s Bruce Gilbert, The Journey itself is often more important than arrival with every new tank of gasoline bringing promise as you simply move away and in between your problems.

In Antonioni’s The Passenger, Maria Schneider’s character asks Jack Nicholson’s, “…what are you running away from?" As they drive south through the country roads, he replies, "Turn your back to the front seat..." and she swivels around, throws out her arms, flings her head back and beams as the open road recedes behind them. I think the ending of Radio On leaves a lot more questions to that answer and that’s why it remains an important film about the period and about our approach to grief and life in general.

Approaching an inspired shot of David Beames and Lisa Kreuzer in the Grosvernor Hotel, Bristol

There is the usual booklet packed with informative essay goodness as well as interviews and commentaries from the main players. There’s an essay from music writer Ian Penman – ex-NME etc – discussing the “seriously excellent soundtrack” (and he’s right!) He reiterates the importance of the music as “one of the several reasons Radio On hasn’t dated, isn’t a cringe to watch, of merely gossipy or ‘historic’ interest, is that it wasn’t a ‘punk’ or ‘post-punk’ film in any too-obvious way. It works because it isn’t overloaded with date-stamp signifiers of some supposed 1970s, or punk ‘time’, or England.”

There’s also a lovely short film, Coping With Cupid (1991) written and directed by the most excellent Viv Albertine, former Slit and now writer extraordinaire.

Radio On is released on sparkling Blu-ray and you can order it now from the BFI Shop online and even in person!!

This review was written to the sounds of Kraftwerk’s German language version of the three cassettes in the film plus, Autobahn. Das Ist Ein Groovy Beat, Ja?