This is a film about
life, death and supermarkets, and we start with “Common People”. Of course we
do. Then Jarvis tries to repair a car, it doesn’t work, so he gets a bike. After
which he arrives at a pond and starts feeding ducks. God I love Jarvis Cocker.
However, my heart is
forever won by that small Sheffield girl named Liberty who listens to “Disco
2000” and then has a few brilliant words to say to the camera. She is amazing.
She moved me to tears.
It’s a fantastic
documentary. Simple, straightforward, soaked through with millions of common
people. Common fans, common musicians, common British city. Is Jarvis Cocker a
common man? Well, as Pulp’s guitarist so nicely puts it, he has a potential to
be one.
The vibe is simple
and magical, and that is what they were going for. There’s this reunion concert
in Sheffield which runs through the whole film, and we also get glimpses into
this fairly unremarkable English city and what it has to say about Pulp (an
elderly fan who goes by the name of Josephine: Better than Blur. More melody.
Better words.) A musician, a nurse, a man selling newspapers. And all those
little oddities that had to happen in a film starring Jarvis. We discuss
Pulp-themed underwear. We see a bunch of people singing “Help The Aged” in a
local diner. We see Jarvis throwing toilet paper into the audience.
No one can touch this
guy. No one. His charm is his vulnerability. With this concert in Sheffield, in
the city where it all began, he wanted to tidy things up. Bring it all to a
beautiful end. Which is not what rock stars do.
