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"We are the children of Fritz Lang and Werner von Braun," reads the manifesto
on the wall, shot in stark black and white by Martin Schäfer, as David Bowie
sings 'Helden'. Co-produced by Wim Wenders and starring Lisa Kreuzer, Radio On
wears its German influences so brazenly on its sleeve that it's almost a
surprise to find its taciturn anti-hero Robert B heading in the opposite
direction, towards Bristol. Wenders had to go to the US to make his own most
famous road movie, Paris, Texas (W. Germany/France, 1984), but Chris Petit
succeeded with Radio On in making a distinctive and culturally English road
movie, a peculiar exception in a British cinema rarely given to following
highways.
After the road, Radio On's real star is its soundtrack of late-70s oddities,
from Wreckless Eric to Lene Lovich. The significance of contemporary popular
music in defining a film can't be unfamiliar to anyone who went to the cinema in
the 1990s, but unlike Trainspotting (d. Danny Boyle, 1996) or Pulp Fiction (US,
1994) the music in Radio On has an uneasy relationship with the diegesis. Songs
work their way into the film's fabric, but only when the next cut ends sound as
well as image are we reminded that the music was in the background all along,
and someone was listening to it.
Like the music, everything in Radio On, from Baader-Meinhof graffiti to the
branding on a lonely rural petrol station, carries the sense of having been put
there deliberately. It's no accident either that Robert is a DJ by trade, but as
a character he is a cipher: Petit concentrates instead on the English landscape,
and Modernist architecture, viewed through a naturally cinematic car
windscreen.
Rarely seen between its release in 1980 and recent reissue, Radio On has
acquired the reputation of a film that diagnoses its moment: the bleakness and
emotional autism of post-punk Britain before Thatcher. Seen again in the 21st
century, its points of reference seem more eclectic. The robotic melodies of
Kraftwerk, the manic pub funk of Ian Dury and the progressive electronica of
Robert Fripp all belong to very different musical traditions. Correspondingly,
Northern Ireland, the trivia of British rock history and the fallout of the
1960s sexual revolution are now considered part of quite separate historical
narratives. For all Robert's lack of obvious emotional responses, Radio On
remains his own intensely personal journey.
Danny Birchall
*This film is available on BFI DVD.
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1. A Scottish Soldier (6:16)
Production stills
