'Vinyl Generation': Indie Film Review

Directed by Keith Jones.
Produced by Jeffrey Brown and Garry K. Griffin.
Executive Producer: Barbara Kopple.
Cast: Otto Urban, Ondřej Šturma, David Cajthaml, Pavla Jonssonová,
Veronika Šrek Bromová, Václav Havelka III.

Vinyl Generation: A Story of Art, Revolution and Vinyl is a documentary about 25 years in the making to explore, for the first time, 1980’s Communist Czechoslovakia and how an emerging generation took inspiration from alternative culture to create their own worldview, politics, and of course, eventually a revolution.

Keith Jones directed this unique generational culture documentary that follows a historian and exhibition curator, Otto M. Urban, as well as Ondřej Šturma, an alternative music promoter and producer. Both Urban and Šturma were influenced by their previous experience with illegal record trading as teenagers and later in 1989 with first-hand participants in the turbulent events as students. This includes some rare footage and never before seen footage. The producers traveled around and personally filmed and documented all the events, including some personal life events that took place when they were younger in late 90’s, as the film opened with them showing their technique of smuggling their illegal record trading.

This is a very unique documentary that was made over the span of 25 years in a communist country. We learned so much from this documentary. There is Generation X, an underground culture that emerged in the 80’s that was influence by punk. And there were international art movements, as well as records that were illegal during this time. This is a very well executed documentary by director Keith Jones, who also directed a groundbreaking documentary called Punk in Africa. This documentary was also produced by the two time Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple and Gary Griffin, who won for best cinematography in a documentary called The Education of Shelby Knox in 2005. You can imagine how this documentary looks with their interviews. It has the atmosphere of the 80’s and 90’s, as it takes place within 25 years from 1989 onward. I absolutely knew nothing about this revolution or what had been going on since 1989, but by watching this documentary, I learned so much in one hour and 14 minutes about the revolution of art and vinyl in Czechoslovakia.

Many interviews were done by some of the people who made some impact throughout the revolutions, including the interview with Jan Macháček, a journalist and musician, in which he was in a band called Velvet Revival Band. And Jáchym Topol, a writer and poet, who has a brother in the band called Psí Vojáci in 1987 that played and performed, making a massive shock and getting banned almost instantly. They still played and performed, but hidden away in some bars or out in the country. The interview with Topol was also included with his early interview dated back in 1989 where he was still an underground journalist. Other interviews included Jan Hisek (visual artist), Veronika Šrek Bromová (visual artist and a professional art), Tomaš Vaněk (Rector, Academy of Fine Arts), Luboš Merhaut (cultural historian), and many more. Most of the interviews with these people had some effect or impact to the culture and are very informative for us to know.

A great documentary from Keith Jones, which he knew how to structure this together with a beginning, middle, and end. He knew how to make us to sit through and listen to their interesting story and their experience during the revolution. We even see some of rare concert footage from Lou Reed’s first concert in 1990 and a secret show in 2009, as well as Frank Zappa’s first show in 1991 and Lydia Lunch. Very powerful documentary, it showed how Otto M. Urban and Ondřej Šturma started with illegal trading records and continue their journey to become the most influential people that changed the world of art, alternative music, and vinyl in Czechoslovakia. Jones knew how to get all that within an hour and 14 minutes. Not too many documentarians were able to do what Jones did, especially by collecting and using original documentations that they actually filmed personally in period of 25 years. I am very wowed by this documentary. I’ll give this documentary a score of 5 out of 5.

Vinyl Generation: A Story of Art, Revolution and Vinyl is now available on Amazon Prime, Tubi TV and Vudu.

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