Cinema Rediscovered: Absolute Beginners 
Set against a backdrop of emerging teen culture and rising racial tension in late '50s London, Colin MacInnes' cult novel is brought to the screen in Julien Temple's exuberant musical adaptation with a who's who cast of music luminaries from Bowie and Ray Davies to Sade.
Julien Temple’s much anticipated film Absolute Beginners was caught in the crosshairs of the imminent collapse of key British film company Goldcrest (the film would be blamed not only for that collapse but also of the entire British Film Industry!) and the high esteem which MacInnes’ book was held.
Viewed from a distance of nearly 40 years and without those twin pressures, Absolute Beginners is excitingly ambitious cinema continuing in a visionary British cinematic lineage set by Powell & Pressburger and whose dialogue between 1950s and 1980s pop culture and rising racial and political tensions speaks as pertinently and presciently to today.
