Young Soul Rebels

Plot synopsis:
The action centres on several themes firstly a homosexual murder investigation involving one of the central characters (Valentine Nonyela) and his relationship with his girlfriend (Sophie Okonedo).
The second narrative involves a gay punk (Jason Durr) and a soulboy (Mo Sesay) in a relationship, which is the source of the narrative conflict as they face double prejudice of racism and homophobia, in both West Indian and white British communities. Ultimately, The film is a love story that could be seen as an allegory for racial and class unity, as their love transcends class and race barriers.
Set in London in 1977, the plot takes place against the background of the Queen's Silver Jubilee. This is a buddy movie between two friends, Chris and Caz, who run a pirate radio station from a tower block in Dalston, East London. The film starts with a murder of their friend TJ while cruising for sex in the local park at night and, while Caz is cut up by the death of his friend, Chris seems to want to push forward towards a professional career in commercial radio. They both want to promote soul music while the prevailing popular music is punk. Chris meets Tracy at the recording studio and persuades her to get his audition tape heard but he is not ready to sell out his identity to get a job in the mainstream.
Caz meets a punk Billibud who talks about communism and the Socialist Workers Party, while wearing (admittedly nicked) Vivienne Westwood designer T-shirts. The murder and the different paths they seem to be taking causes tension between the buddies Chris and Caz. Chris discovers that he has a tape recorded of the murder but fails to hand it in as evidence. He is then pulled in by the police as a suspect because he was in possession of TJ's cassette radio. He tries to call Caz but Caz is busy with his new boyfriend and trying to get a bigger aerial for their pirate radio station. He calls Tracy and she helps him to get a solicitor. He tells her about the tape and she advises him to hand it in as evidence, but again, he puts this off.
Chris and Caz have their showdown on the roof of the tower block and Chris nearly falls off the roof. He then meets Tracy and she persuades him to send the tape to the police, but not before he has made a copy. They then make love on a rooftop. On the day of the Silver Jubilee celebrations Caz and Billibud go to the street fair, where Billibud is attacked by the local skinheads. Caz and Billibud return home and make love. That evening Chris goes to the radio station but Caz is not there and the studio has been vandalised. He starts broadcasting "Funk the Jubilee" but it is not the same without his partner Caz. He then is attacked by TJ's murderer who turns out to be someone he and Caz had thought of as a friend. He escapes but cannot find Caz.
The grand reckoning is at an open air disco in the park where TJ was murdered. Caz and Billibud are MC's and Chris is trying to get to them to warn them that there is going to be trouble from TJ's murderer. A Molotov cocktail is thrown onto the stage and while Caz and Billibud try to save the vinyl records, Chris puts on the tape of TJ's murder, which brings him out and onto the stage where he falls to his death in the inferno of his own creation.There is a bitter-sweet background of the racial and sexual tensions of the British 1970s, with skinheads hassling Chris and Caz, local whites making snide remarks about how things have changed since they were young and blacks who are unable to decide if they hate whites, mixed-race people or "batty boys" most. Yet, to balance this, the youth in the clubs are enjoying the music, drinking, dancing and bonking inter-racially and without strong prejudices about gay men kissing in clubs.
The final scene with the main characters cleaning the records, the reconciliation of the two DJ buddies and the one-by-one each of the friends joining into dance together is very life-affirming.

Tags: violence, murder

Review:
Flawed, but from the heart..
Firstly, lets get the negatives ironed out and set the record straight.
Yes, the plot gets a bit lost towards the end, yes some of the acting is questionable, yes some of the storyline is a little far fetched.
If we judged every film we saw on those merits alone we'd be very shallow people!
Thank heavens British Cinema gets away with making films like this, that represent British History, Culture and lifestyle in a non-conformist, sensitive and "path less trodden" view.
Yes it has a gay story line...
and to correct another review only ONE of the two central characters is gay.
What sets this film apart if we are discussing it within the genre of "Gay films" is that it tackles the delicate issue of men of Afro-Caribbean descent being gay in an interesting and uncompromising way.
It doesn't pander to our expectations/stereotypical view of gay men, and utilises the sexuality angle as an integral part of the whole plot.
"Jeffery" it aint!
Nuff Said!
The whole story is set in the Summer of 1977 - the Queens Silver Jubilee.
Chris & Caz run "Soul Patrol" - a pirate radio station that plays Jazz Funk - marginalised at the time by Punk and Reggae.
One of their close friend's is murdered in the park, and Chris finds a piece of evidence as to who the killer is.
The film is Directed by Isaac Julien, who was shortlisted for a Turner Prize recently (2002) (A prestigious UK award within the art community) Julien has captured, by use of location (Dalston - East London) Lighting (capturing the hot summer of '77 perfectly) and Music (the soundtrack is a gem - Roy Ayers, Funkadelic, Blackbyrds etc) a mood and feeling that I've felt from no other film.
In some ways "Young Soul Rebels" was ahead of its time, and was badly marketed and has been aired very little since its release in 1991.
Its "Celebration & Integration" message is how we now live, as a mixed race/sexuality culture here in the Major towns of the UK today...
it seems such a shame to mis-label it "A gay film" when there is clearly more to it than that..
Good film!
Especially when its intentions are understood.
I am currently writing a paper on this film and another for one of my film classes, Topics in National Cinemas, as it was one of the films we examined.
While perusing this page for certain information I needed i happened to read the previous comment that someone had posted regarding what they thought of the film.While reading this individual's comments it occurred to me that they COMPLETELY misunderstood the film and what it set out to challenge and address.
This film is NOT a murder mystery.
Yes, a murder occurs and sets off the story, but it is no more essential to the plot than is the youth in a coma in La Haine (Kassovitz, 1995).
Like La Haine, this film sets out to address social issues pertaining to race, class, positioning in the political landscape, and, unlike La Haine, sexuality (which seemed to greatly disturb the previous individual who posted).Young Soul Rebels examines the social landscape of late 1970s Britain, and particularly how it affects youths within the greatly marginalized "Black" culture.
It confronts issues of diaspora, through the juxtaposition of different aspects of the "Black" culture, as in the rastas working at the garage, compared with the two, funk obsessed (and much more "Afro-English") main characters.
It also looks at the intersection at which certain sub-cultural borders collide, as in the Punks, the Funks, and the Reggaes, as well as Hetero and Homosexuality.
Ultimately this notion of collision is key to understanding this film for what it is, which is precisely identities in collision.
If the previous individual who posted had understood this, then they would have also seen how the murderer's motives implied this idea of identity collision, were driven by it and pertained more to it than to reading the film as a simple "whodunnit." In this light, you'll also find that music drives the film, both as a signifier for identities, and as an expression of them.
Music is certainly an essential component to this film.For more information regarding the issues this film juggles, and for a greater understanding of its concepts and meanings, look at the writings of Paul Gilroy, particularly his book "Ain't No Black in the Union Jack," and the film's director, Isaac Julien..
young soul rebels.
firstly this film has some mistakes in it,i was a soul girl back int he day,punks and soul boys weren't pally,but not enemies either,the didn't go to the same clubs,the fashion is correct but the music is out of time ,some of the music came out maybe up to 2 years later,that apart it does pick up the atmosphere of the day and the vibe and is at least acknowledging the soul scene,and the cult of soul boys and girls ,a major thing,but very unknown which is odd,i guess the write must have a bit of info of the movement,still as a fun film its OK and does bring a fewmemories i think unless you were part of the scene you would find thisa bit dull,it is hollow ,but the clothes and dancing are all spot on,although gay guys did have there own disco clubs,again fairly underground as back then it wasn't as tolerated as it is,rightly so,now as so many other films have been made about punks and skinheads it god to see a movie reflecting a little known but extremely popular movement.
Good feeling.
Been a long time since I saw this movie, but whenever I think of it, or even just hear that song from the soundtrack, I feel all happy and <ahem> gay.
Funny thing is, I went back to see what I'd noted about it at the time (1991), and apparently I'd only considered it a so-so film!So, yes, perhaps the story line was a bit flimsy, perhaps all of the movie didnt amount to a whole much ...
but if the memory of it still makes me smile after ten years, it must've been a lot better than I'd originally realised!
rebels without a clue.
I saw this film shortly after it's release, and felt quite cheated.
It's title and advertising gave me the impression that it would be about the black DJ sound systems and soul scene which was at it's height in England during the late '70s and early '80s.
But this only took up a fraction of film time.
Instead, I had to sit through a convoluted sub-plot featuring a murder mystery which appeared all of a sudden during the movie, a very gratuitous gay sex scene, and generally bad acting and direction.
There were a few moments where the protagonists had brushes with the law, and I thought at last this film was going somewhere and would depict the racism of the justice system accurately.
But this was not the case, and these scenes appeared to have been either badly written, or edited.
And when one character deceides to carry out his own murder investigation, I found it laughable.
I understand that no film can be 100% accurate when depicting an era or events around it, and that it should be entertaining to the viewer.
But at least a good attempt should be made to get the basics right.
For example, hardly any of the black male actors sported an afro hairstyle or wore flares, which would have been as common as a rainy day in London during 1977.
Blacks mixing with Punks?
I'm no sure about that.
They would have considered a lot of Punks to be similar to the skinheads which carried out a lot of racist attacks at that time.
Also another sex scene featuring Sophie Okenedo and Valentine Nonyela, was not handled well at all, and was certainly not as explicit as the previous gay sex scenes which says a lot about it's director.
By trying to show that homosexuality in the black british community is opposed more than in the white, I feel is absolute nonsense.
Homophobia has no colour preference, and being black, it's director Isaac Julien should know better really..
An accurate picture of the times..
I am amazed at the lack of knowledge displayed by the previous reviewer.
I first saw this film in the 90s and watched it again last night.
I was part of this general scene in southern England at that time and I have to say that the music, dancing and fashions are completely accurate.
This nonsense about Afros and flares, that belonged in the early 70s, by 77 all that had changed.
And yes, punks and soul boys were mixing in the clubs, fashions crossed over even earlier, the plastic "jelly" sandals and winkle picker shoes, all adopted from the punks in late 76/77.If anybody had walked in with flares there would have been howls of laughter..
Very Poorly Conceived Movie.
Remember the 1966 movie BLOWUP ?
That's the movie that claims to be a murder thriller but is nothing of the sort .
YOUNG SOUL REBELS is basically the same , it starts with a murder in a park then spends most of its running time going out of its way not to be a murder thriller except for the last five minutes which reveals who the murderer is .
I'm surprised anyone is still able to remember or care about the murder subplot by the end of the movie since it concentrates more on the soul club scene of the late 1970s .
Worse it features several scenes of men kissing and in one scene there's something a lot worse than kissing going onBefore anyone goes running to the admin screaming that a raving homophobe has submitted a review let me point out that BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN has received massive critical acclaim ( Though it's unlikely to make more than 50 million dollars at the US box office ) so much for homophobia .
What my main gripe the opening and closing scene revolves around a murder and very little in between has anything to do with the alleged main story .
There is no main story as we see a rambling ill focused film concerning itself with the club scene of 1977 .
Ironically enough there's no feel of time or place here and could easily be set in any part of Britain at any point during the last 30 years This is just another cheaply made British movie that was produced by people who have no desire to make movies for a mainstream audience .
If they had decided to make a movie revolving around a murder in a park that would have been fine , ditto if they had decided to make a movie revolving around the London soul scene but seeing as they've tried to combine the two YOUNG SOUL REBELS is a failure while the scenes of homosexuality is totally alienating for the average cinema goer .
At least BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN deserves credit for knowing what it is.
Aside from a fairly hot gay sex scene this is pretty bad.
I caught this way back in 1991 at an art house.
I had no idea what it was about but the gay papers were advertising it to a ridiculous degree.
I thought it might be about gay men in London but it wasn't.
It was about a bunch of largely uninteresting characters in the 1970s Britain.
It threw in homosexuality, racism, murder...basically anything it could think of and ended up quite a mess.
The plot kept veering all over the place never settling on a consistent tone.
The acting was pretty bad too.
There was however a hot male on male sex scene.
Nothing explicit--it was mostly just a lot of kissing and no shots from the waist down.
This was the only sequence that caught my attention and the only part that had any heat or passion.
Aside from that this is a mess..
This will be the review then.
Yey!
Ive found a film that Ive seen and no-one has commented on!
It's been that long since Ive watched it, that Ive forgotten all about it.
All I can remember is that it was about some gay black guys and they run around for a bit...
jeez...
I think it was set in London.
Oh dear :) I always remember that it sucked, but I suspect that it may have not been that bad.
It may have irritated me at the time with the gay angle tho.
Im certainly not homophobic, but things like this, such as, say, Queer as Folk, tend to get my back up, I guess it is my middle-class sensibilites being offended by 'having my nose rubbed in it'.
I much prefer the more sensitive approach such as 'In and Out' (Frank Oz dir), or Wilde (Stephen Fry starred), both of which I rate quite highly.