Movie Review: Live Forever

So that's what happened in the 1990s.

I think when our little boy Noah asks the inevitable "what was it like last century Dad?", I will likely give him this DVD to watch. Provided DVD players still exist by the time he gets cheeky enough to ask such a question.

If I remember correctly, the 1970s were basically an oil crisis with rock music, the 1980s were an economic crisis accompanied by punk rock music, and the 1990s were a decade of better things, with at last some hope for the future.

The internet, mobile phones, cheap air travel, and the joy of being thirty-something.

Live Forever, the rise and fall of Britpop (made in 2003) tells the story of the UK before the year 2000 with a narrative knitting together the emergence of post-Thatcher liberal politics, personified by the young Tony Blair; music from Oasis, Pulp and Blur providing the soundtrack; Jarvis Cocker proffering the decade's street philosophy; London emerging as a fashion powerhouse again; and artists like Damien Hirst shoving dead sharks in tanks of formaldehyde to shock the art establishment globally.

The humour and drama that emerges from this video's astonishing interviews with the Gallagher brothers makes the whole thing worthwhile on its own. But you also get the reflective Damon Albarn of Blur, the insightful Jarvis Cocker (Pulp), and brilliant Ozvald Boateng - whose fashion sense fueled the whole 'Cool Britannia' sensibility, clothing and beyond.

My prized souvenirs of the era are memories of trips to London as a wide-eyed kiwi boy accompanying my fashion and street-savvy wife Lesley, plus a beautiful, tailored, purple shirt. Ozvald Boateng of course.