Gah, i am doing terribly at updating this thing! Quite a lot to catch up on. Few weeks ago I saw the Depeche Mode fan documentary, The Posters Came From The Walls, a film made by Nick Abrahams and Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller.
I believe the film was originally released at the London Film Festival this year, and this was very much a director’s cut (in fact they cut a whole 3 minutes). We were treated to a brunch beforehand, which was basically a scramble for anything resembling solid food. I came away with a salmon and cottage cheese bagel. Or half of one anyway.
There was a brief introduction from the filmmakers before the film began with foreign DM fans giving their perceptions of what Basildon may be like. All wildly off target of course, but charming thoughts.
Charm and humour run through this film. As with many bands, DM seemingly have a stream of dedicated fans that Alan Partridge would describe as ‘mentalists’. There are those fans in Russia that celebrate Dave Day on 9th May in honour of Dave Gahan’s birthday. The same day that victory over the Nazis is celebrated. So as well as the armed forces marching through the streets of major cities, one may also see a less disciplined parade, complete with banners, drink and a lot of music. One fan describes the fanbase as ‘Depechist….like communist, like fascist’.
Behind the Iron Curtain during the 1980s, the band were treasured by a legion of fans, who could only listen to them on bootlegged cassette tapes. A Berliner recalls that when DM played East Berlin, he got a job as a security guard at the concert, only to tear off his uniform as soon the band came on stage and join the fans on the other side of the barrier.
Perhaps the most extreme fan is the young woman who maintains a journal of beautifully drawn imagined scenes that she shares with the band. With every page she turns, one gets a little more uneasy, and I can’t but think of Pat Bateman’s secretary looking through his diary only to find crude, violent imagery from a warped mind. Fortunately, there’s nothing quite as graphic.
Rivalling that in extreme reverance, is the German man who re-creates the video to ‘Enjoy the Silence’ with crown, deckchair and robe with his young son dressed up in identical gear following him. The child seems to enjoy it, but I fear he’ll be recounting these youthful jollies to a therapist in years to come.
There are British fans interviewed too. A once homeless man who lived under Hammersmith Bridge armed only with a Sony cassette player and a copy of ’101′ who after seeing Depeche at Crystal Palace turned his life around, got some shelter and educated himself, and a short segment on young goths in Cambridge who go to church (gothic, naturally) to celebrate, erm, being a goth.
It’s a short film (70 minutes) mixing the more bizarre stories with others that fill you with warmth. Plus, it is humourous throughout. Aside from a short segment with Trent Reznor (interspersed with a marvellous marching band version I think of ‘Never Let Me Down Again’) there aren’t any celebrity fans and it’s ordinary people from around the world expressing their love for the band, and how they’ve been touched in some way. A wonderful film, thoroughly enjoyable.
Official site: http://theposterscamefromthewalls.com/
Nicholas Abrams’ site: http://www.nicholasabrahams.com/depeche-mode-film.htm
