Once Pulp decided to reform for an encore run of festival dates through 2011-12, bookish cardigan wearers around the world rejoiced and it’s their voices which ring throughout this heartwarming film. The minutiae of life in the band’s hometown of Sheffield are explored, as well as the town’s integral role in the band’s formation and development throughout Britpop’s heyday in the 1990s.
Pulp were always a cut above their peers, mostly down to the spidery limbs and literate everyday poetry of front man and unlikely idol Jarvis Cocker. Seemingly sex obsessed, he sings with exceptional clarity about those things that reside on the periphery of The Act; the conversations that lead towards it, the clothes strewn on the floor after it and the embarrassments that we all must endure to, as he so eloquently puts in the film, ‘get off’ with someone. The film revolves around the band’s final show in their hometown, and the live scenes are shown in slow motion to give it all an extra epic edge.
Like every great music documentary, by the end you’re rushing to dig out your old CDs to dance around the kitchen in your undies. It’s heartbreaking to know a band as special as Pulp who’s members are all still alive but not still making music together, although this lovingly made film is a damn fine consolation.
BY NICK HILTON
