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Disappointing Documentary on 1968

Vince Eremos | 26.11.2000 15:33

The "Demo- Doc" is starting to become a genre in itself. This one, "Days in the Life" ( title lifted from the Beatles song ), broadcast Sat eve BBC2, 21:00, was about the Grosvenor Sq protest over Vietnam.

It was an important event, be sure, perhaps the first modern demonstration in that it set the pattern for those which have occurred since. It has also started to slip into the realm of folklore, and for those who werent there, a serious documentary is welcome.
But this wasnt it: although interviewing Tariq Ali, the still active de facto "leader" of the action, it also included many less welcome, indeed pointless people with spurious recollections. This is the "I was there too" approach, and it is flawed; it assumes that any bemused passer by or dweller in Mayfair has a valid point of view, even coppers. Moreover, this documentary sought to bury the impact of the action and subsume it into a "shared" experience- a grandad's tale that brings us all closer together.
Was it Howard Jacobson who remarked that another way to expunge an experience from the record is not to pretend that it didnt happen (a crude and exposable ruse), but to pretend that it happened to everyone. This documentay seems to put 1968 in that mould.

Vince Eremos

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