2: Adam Curtis- 'It felt like a Kiss' Review

Having watched Adam Curtis' last three TV series - 'The century of self', 'The power of nightmares' and 'The trap' I was keen to watch the film that was connected to the show he collaborated on with Punchdrunk last year in Manchester.

The film takes its title from the infamous Crystals number 'He kissed me and it felt like a kiss' which Carole King wrote in response to discovering that her babysitter Little Eva was being regularly beaten by her boyfriend.

This is a hard film to describe. I could call it the Rock and Roll years as done by John Pilger.

It covers the period 1958-1969 (i.e. 'The golden age of pop) and explores the linkages between US hegemony and power in these years and pop culture.

As usual Curtis uses archive footage to create a deeply uneasy dreamlike state. However this time is closer to a nightmare.
The film fits in nicely with the current fascination with the early sixties ( a la Mad Men, An Education, A Single Man) continuing to explore the tensions within a society on the cusp of seismic change.

I particularly like how Curtis uses the story of Enos the Chimp who was the first primate in space to weave together the story of the Superpower space race, the spread of the HIV virus and the CIA's involvement in the violent overthrow of the Congo's first prime minister Patrice Lumumba.

Curtis finds links between the unlikeliest of people. For example he links Osama Bin Laden and the Mason family by way of the TV show Bonanza (It was Bin Laden's favourite show when he was ten and the Mason family would end up living on its abandoned set).

Curtis also includes some draw dropping footage of 'The Long days' a propaganda film former failed CIA agent Saddam Hussein commissioned 'Dr. No'/'From Russia with love' director Terence Young to direct. Think about that one for a minute!

Curtis also has a very interesting take on the assassination of John and Robert Kennedy, showing how people projected their own particular agendas/paranoia on these events.

Indeed mental illness is a major theme of the piece with the well documented woes of Brian Wilson and Phil Spector with Richard Nixon and the founder of the CIA's mental health issues.

The film does have some flaws. There are a couple of clips of H. Rap Brown and a Black panther and reference to Martin Luther King but there could have been more references to the Civil rights movement.

The film looks at the social repression of women (symbolised by recurrent footage of a depressed housewife and women acting out their frustrations in therapy) and gay men (symbolised by the story of Rock Hudson and Lou Reed's receiving ECT to 'cure' him of his homosexual feelings.

Curtis also uses footage of contemporary adverts (Mad Men again!) to show how advertising agencies began to exploit peoples' desires and fears.

The film is bookended by the same clip of Doris Day waking up in room '2001'. At the beginning she is woken by the strains of Fats Domino's 'Let the four winds blow' (symbolising both the beginning of the rock and roll era and the social changes that were about to occur in race/gender relations). At the end a far more ominous sound wakes her, fulfilling the prophecy of the room number.

However this is overall an extraordinary piece, the best dissection of the American psyche since Michael Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine'

Do check out Adam Curtis' blog on the BBC website where he has posted the film.
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/