Gazwrx - The Films Of Jeff Keen Details

An unrestrained celluloid cry from the South Coast

For a seemingly, soft-spoken, self-effacing chap from Brighton Jeff Keen certainly had a lot inside which he needed to get out.

He sprays images like a machine gun, cutting at a thousand miles an hour and layering image upon image as if he can't do it fast enough. Each film is a glorious cry of personal freedom which put me in mind of everything from Captain Beefheart to early Dada.

By his own admission in the accompanying interview, chance played a key role in his work and this indeed is a large part of its charm - the collision of American graphic art, fire, junk, enigmatic slogans and masked freaks cavorting on Brighton beach leaves your head in a spin, never more joyously than with the split screen stuff.

The soundtrack, where there is any, echoes work like Kenneth Anger's Magick Lantern Cycle with its counterpoint use of crooners, Doo Wop and kitsch sixties pop, but takes itself infinitely less seriously. In fact, if there is one thing about these films which really recommends them it is their peculiar Britishness; the intermittent glimpses of overcast skies, the shabby south coast skyline and the pasty English faces remind you that Brighton in the 1960s was a long way from Haight Ashbury. But none of that stopped Keen - these films are joyous, anarchic, inspiring and relentless.

Watch them, get hold of a Super 8 camera, find a rubbish dump and carry the baton onwards. Enjoy.