This short film is celebrated by devotees of The Clash; to non-fans, it's still interesting, less in the story of the band but in the style of its telling. "We came, we fought, we made great music" - that seems to be the take home message, all four of the band's original members contribute (and the film indeed contains little other than a mixture of their interviews and concert footage); but there seems to be a very deliberate decision not to present a blow-by-blow description of every action, but rather, for the band members to present their history as a simple fact of nature - something that just happened. Given that the band rose and closed in just five years, maybe there's some truth in this curt account, although perhaps also the band (and film-maker Don Letts) realised that less can be more in terms of effect. In spite of past quarrels, the band all essentially sing the same song here; the other thing of note is quite how posh lead singer Joe Strummer can actually sound. But I'd have liked a little more social context - regardless of their musical talents, the post-punk Clash represented their times (the end of the seventies and the start of the eighties) maybe more than any other band - but this is only weakly conveyed in this (somewhat introverted) account.
Review of The Clash: Westway to the World
