In 1970, a music aficionado and entrepreneur named Michael Eavis staged a "pop, folk, and blues" festival on a dairy farm in the English community of Glastonbury, not far from Stonehenge. 1,500 attended the "Glastonbury Fayre," and a second festival followed in 1971. By 2005, The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts had grown into the biggest pop music festival in the world, playing host to the biggest names in rock, reggae, electronic, blues, and world music for a crowd of up to
150,000 people over the course of a three-day weekend in June. Filmmaker Julien Temple offers a backstage look at the history of this event, as well as a cross section of the memorable performances which have taken place on the festival's stage in the documentary Glastonbury. Performers featured in archival footage include R.E.M., David Bowie, New Order, Radiohead, Coldplay, the Velvet Underground, Nick Cave, Oasis, Blur, Björk, and many more. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
For all the posers with light sticks and piercings, there are moments of Dada-esque beauty, not to mention some great music from Tinariwen, Bjork, David Bowie and the late, great Joe Strummer.
The overall soundtrack seamlessly patches together a sonic quilt of eclectic music that evokes a kind of timeless flow. It's not a Glastonbury of any particular vintage, but rather a continuum of experiences that have occurred on this sacred ground.
Sure, the film is about change, but did new culture come from Glastonbury, or did Glastonbury adapt to the culture? Without an answer to this or many similar questions, Glastonbury is a pretty spectacle with no documentary weight.
Combining images of 30 years of politics, music, self-expression and alternative living, it's a vibrant, if inevitably scattered, film that manages to tread the fine line between chronicling the festival and exploiting it.
What [Temple] does...is immerse his audience in the spirit of the festival with ingenious editing that shows the Glastonbury Festival as nothing short of a geographically bound society that just happens to exist for a few days a year.
The movie's 135 minutes [feels] long. But the length is a product of [director] Temple's desire to cram in as much as he can. Despite the festival's drawbacks, it's obvious Temple loves everything about it. Even Coldplay.
An interesting idea of a documentary, told entirely through footage from people who attend the festival. While its a little over indulgent and drags on a bit too long, it truly does paint the picture of the of the best festivals in the world.
Wish there were more music acts in the extras, but great telling of the Glastonbury story. Thanks to msnoodle, I now am somewhat annoyed by Temple's failure to put a name under a talking head.
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