Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Stars of the Roller State Disco

doors open at 20:00 * intro & film start at 20:30

Stars of the Roller State Disco (1984) * Directed by Alan Clarke * 72 minutes * In English.  1984
Back in England in 1984 there was a Prime Minister named Margaret Thatcher, who hurled the country into a dismal neo-liberal world, and attempted to make everybody into an entrepreneur. Those that didn't fit in and couldn't stand on their own feet were heavily attacked. Especially young people and minorities were the targets of her clampdown. Within that context this flick was televised, made by the maverick British filmmaker David Clarke. He was a maverick director of several of the most offbeat movies to come out of England during the 70s and 80s. This one is an oddball sci-fi dystopian movie about youth unemployment and how neoliberalism doesn't only use police with clubs to beat people down - but also mindless entertainment.
 
Don't look for any long-winded explanations or science-fiction gadgets in this movie – this is about a mood, and director Clarke simply throws this in the middle of it, and lets us contemplate the situation. In this future dystopia the unemployed youth are sent to a roller rink where they just rollerskate, going around in circles endlessly. There are distractions for them, a hermetic environment of junk food, junk entertainment, and sex. A movie like this shows how even something like sex can be hollowed out and exploited as a means of control. Around the time this film was made, many people were questioning  the music industry and exposing the fake rebellion of rock music. I remember a punk band called the Poison Girls that knocked out the lyrics: "State control, and rock 'n' roll, are run by clever men..."  
 
This movie is surreal, but not in a spectacular way… it's a surrealism that has become a deadly routine reality. And for me, real science fiction isn't about drama and huge special effects, but about the pettiness and dullness of a future that is becoming very real. The same unspectacularity goes with the acting and the video quality of the images – they're all unpolished and they're not meant to look like advertisements. Remember, this movie is a dystopian nightmare, but at the same time it would probably fit into our society today. It's a movie about rigged games, and the cancelling of alternatives.
 
Even though Alan Clarke has become recognised as a beloved cult filmmaker over the years, this particular flick remains an outlier and is rarely ever seen.