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Directed by Nicholas Abrahams and Jeremy Deller
And there was me thinking Depeche Mode were just a poor man’s New Order. This documentary by Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller (the man behind the recent Procession project in Manchester) and film-maker Nicholas Abrahams looks into the all-encompassing faith and devotion of the international superfans of Dave Gahan and co, a series of sweat-and-tears accounts of bootleg tapes and nail varnish from Communist Russia and East Germany to Romania and Iran. Sound like a bizarre concept? Although the DM dedication is both scary and completely baffling it’s impossible not to be carried away with the fervour of the enthusiasts on show, a combination of disbelief that I Just Can’t Get Enough has travelled so far and incredulity that an hour of grainy footage and crazy Goths can be so entertaining.
It is the Russian contingent who take centre stage, a festival of 80s haircuts and boomboxes who celebrate two important events every May 9th: Victory Day (a national holiday) and Dave Day (Dave Gahan’s birthday). The initial snigger it’s impossible to resist is met with a rammed club scene with a crowd singing along to Depeche Mode live on a video screen – this isn’t just a few of your local emos causing a stink, this is an institution. The further the directors take us the more bizarre it gets. We see a Romanian who sells his stereo for a Depeche Mode ticket, Elena and Orlando from Pasadena performing Gahan’s dance moves in a car park, a Berlin family recreating the ‘Enjoy The Silence’ video at their local beach – each proves their devotion in a different, more bizarre, way. Each of the über fans we meet have something in common: they all exist as outsiders, rejecting both the mainstream and the conventional alternative, and Depeche Mode are essentially their full-blown hairspray-tinted religion (literally so in the church of St Edward King and Martyr in Cambridge). The music of the band fits chronologically with wider social changes in their lives, be it revolution or homelessness, so the illegal tapes and hand drawn pictures offer both rebellion and a sense of belonging that had previously been absent. It would probably be possible to make this film with any number of 80s bands but for some reason the slight naffness of this choice makes the decades of international devotion all the more ludicrously brilliant, as illustrated by the Russians pondering over what Gahan’s hometown Basildon must be like. If you’ve ever had a band’s poster in your locker or taped a song off the radio this is essential viewing – as both a love letter and a warning to keep an eye on your future fan-ly conduct. Words by: Harry Garne |
