Glastonbury Film Review – Thirty Years Later, The Sunset of a Hippie Dream in All Its Glory | film

WAt Glastonbury, in a year off, anyone missing their dose of West Country bacchanalia will have to make do with this fascinating documentary, remastered in 4K and re-released for its 30th anniversary. Filmed at the 1993 festival, it’s a powerful antidote to today’s digital saturation: no mobile phones, no corporate logos, just tens of thousands of people unconsciously possessing a large volume in one of those blessed years when the sun god smiled upon the people of Glastonbury. If the film wasn’t time-bound enough with the abundant tie-dye, white-boy dreads and acid jazz music on display, a young Dexter Fletcher appears to appear in about 18% of the shots.

The film is less purposefully structured than Julian Temple’s 2006 Glastonbury, whose multi-decade set was grouped into thematic sections. Directors William Beaton, Robin Mahoney and Matthew Salkeld simply hang out with the punters in a three-day time slot, rotating through the camp with selected excerpts from the theatre. There are welcome encounters with acts unlikely to bother your Spotify feed as of late: an imperial rendition by the Stereo MCs of the big hit Connected, the graceful pre-fame Verve creeping through Gravity Grave, and the swinging Porno of Pyros. With the frequently used split-screen cacophony, snippets of eavesdropped conversation float above the soundtrack. One of Monty Python’s drunken hawks sells imaginary wares to passers-by: “Lark’s vomit! Pig’s bladder!”

If a temple movie is the view from the stalls, that sometimes saves the energy of the main stage. Partially shot in Panavision CinemaScope, some scenes are dazzlingly beautiful, alternating between crumbling Mad Max-style grandeur as they weave through the crowd, and arcadey tableaus that suggest the original hippie spirit was still alive in 1993. But the writing is on the wall — or at least on the hot air balloon, plastered with a giant Converse ad, that drifts by in one shot. This film may also have been part of the beginning of the conscious representation, commodification and media mobilization of the festival that propelled it into a new era. It is almost shocking to witness the original state of grace here.