Tony Palmer - All My Loving

This is an early example of Tony Palmer's grandiose misunderstanding of pop music. Determined to uncover the deeper significance of Cream's sturm und drang, he resorts to the most appallingly gratuitous flashcuts of footage from the concentration camps and newsreel from the Vietnam war. The music can't sustain the reference and the effect is simultaneously pompous and kitsch. This film made me realise how overblown most of his films are - it started here.

I had never seen this before and was anticipating nothing more than a pop movie. On viewing it turned out to be far more than I had expected, with some extremely graphic images from conflicts around the world, in the late 60's. The relevance to this period of pop culture was to show that musicians cared about the world they lived in. I'm just not sure that I wanted to see this so graphically portrayed, this was not Hollywood playing at war, it was real life (and death).

As it turned out I had already seen quite a few segments of the pop action on various compilations of 60's music. This was rather disappointing as it had little new footage for me, from that era.

Overall I have rated it 3 stars, although my gut reaction was to only award 2. If you are forewarned about the content and have not seen this it is well worth viewing, in light of it's depiction of a pivotal point in pop culture and worldwide conflict.

Watched this with my boyfriend, who hadn't seen it since he was 13! just searched for it on the off chance. Now I've ordered it for him for xmas, but don't tell him! Brilliant reflection of the times.