THE WALL (THE MOVIE)

This 1982 film is of course based on the album of the same name. It tells the tale of a rock star "Pink" who finds himself becoming increasingly isolated not only from his audience, but from humanity as a whole. He therefore builds a wall around himself.

The story sounds OK, but this film turns out to be little more than an elaborate pop video, with little coherence and virtually no appeal as an attention grabbing tale. The focus here is very much on the art side of the cinema, with moody atmospheres, cartoon sequences and graphic images. Depressing as the film is, some sections were actually omitted on the grounds that they were too disturbing.

In terms of the music, most of the content is lifted directly from the 1979 studio album by Pink Floyd. That said, some tracks have been remixed or re-recorded, while others such as "Empty Spaces" (replaced by "What shall we do now" a longer version of essentially the same song) and "Hey you" are omitted altogether, although the latter did reappear on the DVD version. "When the tigers broke free" is a previously unheard song which remained unavailable on album for many years. "Money" from "Dark side of the moon" also makes a cameo appearance as the poetry Pink has written which the schoolteacher proceeds to ridicule as "absolute rubbish".

Interestingly, Roger Waters was originally pencilled in to play Pink, but his screen test did not go well, and the part went to Bob Geldof (in his debut acting role). Waters did eventually get a walk on part. In a sequence of pure irony, many of the extras in the fascist scenes were real fascists. The scenes were intended to convey the futility of such beliefs, but a real organisation (the Hammerskin Nation) was subsequently formed, and adopted the hammer logo as their own (much to Waters dismay).

The film won a couple of BAFTA awards, significantly for Best song ("Another brick in the wall" - Part 2") and Best sound, but was not nominated in any cinematic categories. For me, that sums up the film nicely in that it is good to listen to, but watching is optional and far from essential.

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