Hyde Park Pick: Pavements

It’s not uncommon for filmmakers to work on documentaries or biopics in collaboration with their subject. This form of development can lead to very beautiful and intimate filmed portraits. However, they can also easily get caught in a dance with the ego of their subject or find themselves curtailed by the limitations of perspective we can all have on the impact and legacy of our own actions.  

When hearing that Pavements was co-written with Stephen Malkmus, the founder, lead singer and lead guitarist of Pavement, gut instinct suggested Alex Ross Perry’s loose docu/biopic hybrid would not suffer these challengers. A truer worry may have been that it wouldn’t necessarily be troubled by the literal truth either.

The reality is perhaps the best possible of outcomes both for a film lover, and a fan. starting on the run up to the band's 2022 worldwide reunion tour, Pavements is a funny, moving and informative portrait of one of the most significant indie bands of the '90s. Whilst loosely describing some historically accurate events from the band’s timeline and featuring real people (or people pretending to be real people) alongside amazing archive footage, Pavements is a loving embodiment of the spirit of the group, rather than a literal documentary.

Amazingly, it hangs together as a film in its own right without needing audiences to come in already as fans. However, the creative and surprising energy of the film, hand in hand with the space it gives to so much of Pavement’s music, makes lots of room for audiences to leave in love.

It’s perhaps fortuitous that we have Pavements playing the same week as another inventive documentary, E.1027 Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea.

Whilst miles apart in terms of subject matter (though I suspect Eileen Gray and Stephen Malkmus would have gotten on like a house on fire), these two films feel significant in how they have both tried to make the filmmaking style and structure appropriate to the subject.

E. 1027 tells the story of house E. 1027, the work of legendary Irish architect/designer Eileen Gray. Much of the film is the story of the house, how it came to be, the product of her relationship with architect Jean Badovici. Then later the push and pull around the property and its ownership, the drama she went through with Le Corbusier relative to the house, but also in how the world perceived her accomplishment in the shadow of a bigger, louder male voice.

I loved E.1027 because whilst grappling with the ins and outs of the situation and the people involved, the filmmakers also endeavoured to make a film that visually feels true to the exceptional artistic vision of Gray. Working to capture within the film space, movement and light – all the facets of Gray’s modernist haven beside the sea.

There are so many amazing documentaries being made, and the challenge of whittling a story down into 100 minutes always feels so impossible; it’s incredible that so many people keep working within these temporal limitations to pay tribute to their heroes. But, the joy of seeing a film that just captures the spirit, not just the fact of the subject…that’s a real cause for celebration.

Pavements is showing at HPPH from Fri 11 Jul in collaboration with our favourite local stockists of their music, Jumbo Records. You can book tickets here.

E.1027 Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea is showing at HPPH in our Tuesday Wonder slot on Tue 15 Jul at 18:00 as part of The Stories We Tell, presented by Leeds Heritage Theatres. You can book tickets here.