The promise of a comprehensive, biographical documentary on the legendary Joe Strummer – formerly the frontman for seminal punk act The Clash – is quickly soured by the opening act of the occasionally turgid, slightly overlong The Future Is Unwritten, which comes courtesy of veteran director Julian Temple (The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle, The Filth And The Fury). Haphazardly intermixing a confounding selection of clips from the films Animal Farm and 1984, the director infuriatingly muddies the fascinating waters of Strummer’s early years, taking us further from the subject through a process of political disassociation that fails to inform in any meaningful way. This is despite the fact that there are many interesting, even artful videos of the singer’s young days, which would have been happily married with the stills available and interviews with family and friends.
The film’s cinematography is lush and interesting, and steeped in brilliant, neatly choreographed aural transfers as the director passes the dais from famous filmic friends (Steve Buscemi, Johnny Depp, Jim Jarmusch, John Cusack, Matt Dillon) to fellow musical travellers (Bono, Bobby Gillespie, Anthony Kiedis and Flea, Courtney Love, Steve Jones, Joe Ely) to Clash alums (Terry Chimes, Mick Jones, Topper Headon) and back to Strummer himself, using the singer’s later-life radio programme on the BBC World Service as the film’s narrative vertebrae.
However, flimsy opening and general cultural insulation aside, the film proves to be an infectious, almost giddy reminiscence, and one with tremendous heart and terrific warmth. It surely helps that so many famous, and famously loquacious, voices are lent – especially by folks like Bono and Johnny Depp, who are able to capture the public’s imagination – but Strummer’s story is such that its power truly needs little embellishment or endorsement, and by simply letting the people who knew him best splaff about him around a campfire, Temple offers his long-time acquaintance a more than worthy send off.
Filmink 3.5/5
