1982. Four people - a science fiction illustrator, a saxophonist who moves from busking to Top of the Pops, an analyist of satellite photography and Julian, a PHD student, meet at intervals, their lives set against a background of recession London. They are the focus of a story which begins to unravel the complex threads linking all aspects of life to an ever more desperate economic situation.
'It's about the contrast between the 1960s and the 1980s. But that was one aspect of the original script which diminished tremendously, the project was very much taken over by events here and now. As we actually made the film the moment of making it became more and more important - we wanted to inscribe the present, Thatcherism, cuts, unemployment into it.'
Laura Mulvey in an interview with Frameworks, Issue 19, 1982.
Effervescent and largely successful black comedy..it's great to see the Left dancing so wittily on the graveyards of past and present.City Limits.
Crystal Gazing (Extract 1)
Stills from Crystal Gazing
