Gritty urban tale

Rating: Null/10 (27 April 2002)

1977 was the year in which iconoclastic punk and hedonistic disco dominated the music charts. How ironic then that Debbie Boone's "You light up my life" should end the year off at the top of the US single's charts. While I don't think the punk movement has ever been suitably documented in movie fiction, the more commercial and mainstream disco culture has had several major films dedicated to it. The best of these was undoubtedly Saturday Night Fever.
The snag is, SNF is NOT a disco movie. Yes, it has some dazzling dance sequences, yes, it has a pulsating soundtrack, and, yes, many of the scenes are shot in the local discoteque. But I have always felt that the disco setting is peripheral to the real story; the alienation of youth and the sanctuary and acceptance they find in each other and their chosen surroundings. In fact, even the film's title is somewhat misleading. Nik Cohn's magazine article on which the film is based (and which he later claimed was a fake), "Tribal rites of the new Saturday Night" would have been more apposite. As Tony Manero, John Travolta perfectly captures these rites, preening himself religiously in front of the mirror, donning his warrior's uniform, and escaping the drudgery of his job and homelife to the battleground, the dancefloor where he is the tribal chief.
Gritty, foulmouthed and downbeat, SNF starkly captures the darker underbelly of the disco subculture.