Tunde's Film (1973) User Reviews

Well-intentioned, long-forgotten community effort is now of marginal interest

[davidvmcgillivray-24-905811 · 3/10 · 16 April 2017]

In 1973 much of East London was as it had been in Victorian times - impoverished, crime-ridden and a no-go area for the rest of the capital. "Tunde's Film" was an attempt to show an aspect of London life rarely seen on screen. It was shot on 16mm, with money from the Arts Council, largely by people with little film experience.The co-directors were 18-year-old East Ender Tunde Ikoli, who was later to become a writer, and Maggie Pinhorn, an art director, who subsequently moved on to another community project in London's Covent Garden. The film looks very rough-and-ready and it's clear that the amateur cast is not comfortable with improvisation. There's a long sequence in a cafe in which everyone talks at once and barely a word is discernible. The story is a reminder that a lack of guidance and inspiration can lead to desperation: a gang of youths hatch a stupid plan to rob a bank but the crime is prevented by police. Freeze frame. This did not impress reviewers when the film was first released. It then disappeared until November 2016, when it turned up on the London Live TV station as part of their Black Britain season. (The print used was scratched to blazes and for the first ten minutes there were two thick yellow lines running down the centre of the frame.Why this was used when the print on BFI Player is perfectly adequate is not clear.) The film is of marginal interest today because of the shots of East London, grim and pre-gentrification, and for the scene in which kids are stopped and searched under so-called "sus" laws that were not generally known to the public until the end of the 1970s.