Duffer / The Moon Over The Alley (BFI Flipside release)

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Just seen these. Have not yet read the notes so some of these observations may have obvious explanations.

Duffer (1970) is like an experimental novel from the late 60s that got made into a film. We get no actual dialogue, just narrative voiceover of scenes that may or may not be real. Duffer is a young man (late teens/early 20s) who seems to be an outsider who have come to London and spends his time between a North London prostitute "Your Gracie", and "Louis Jack", a bullying loner who seems to live in a West London bedsit. Duffer is variously abused, exploited, pampered and pursued between these 2, and on the way he drifts around a world of derelict streets where there are always couples fighting. Weirdy electronic music plays now and then.

The Moon Over The Alley (1975) is more conventional in that it features clearly-defined characters who engage in dialogue and there is a thread of plot. It's set in West London near Portobello Market, at a time when the whole area was getting redeveloped (everything is demolished at the end). Action mainly takes place in a boarding house run by an Anglo-German couple and the tenants are mostly immigrants trying to get on. The episodes of the story include rioting, drunken fights, a strip club, a trip to a gay bar in Soho, a paedophile getting beaten up by a teen gang, and other joys of urban living. It has a soundtrack composed by someone who worked on Hair. Surprisingly, the actress who plays Bertha Gusset also played Your Gracie, which I'd never have guessed without seeing the credits, and even more surprising is that she never worked in anything else, according to imdb.

Both these films are in b&w, which suits them.

[garbed_attic]

I saw Duffer on Mubi last year and thought it was remarkable - probably in my personal top 50 films of all time. It was like a queer Eastenders crossed with Eraserhead and the album cover of Tom Waits' Raindogs! It also reminded me a little of Morris' Blue Jam monologues. There was this queasy sense that Very Bad Things were happening, but the protagonist was too confused and muddled and numb to catch the full implication of the horror.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

I was also reminded of Eraserhead, and it turns out one of the essayists in the BFI booklet sees a faint resemblance as well. I think Duffer is like nothing else, but I'm in no rush to see it again, though there are some striking images in there, and I quite get caught up in trying to figure out where everywhere is. I think Your Gracie lives in Chalk Farm or Archway as one of the bridges Duffer walks over reminds me of one I've seen there.

Moon Over The Alley is, if nothing else, a visual document of the 70s and an antidote to any nostalgia.