Film Review: The Posters Came From The Walls (12A) ****

Nov 27 2009 by Graham Young, Birmingham Mail

ALMOST 30 years after they formed in 1980, Depeche Mode fans might want to storm the Electric Cinema on Station Street at 6pm on Tuesday next week, when this riveting 72-minute documentary has just one screening.

It’s all about how the boys from Basildon have had a disproportionate effect on the world, given that their home town doesn’t even officially recognise them.

Fans from Russia to Iran to California talk about their importance to them, be it from behind the Berlin Wall or the Iranian restrictions on Western music today.

Directed by Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller, the film is fascinating and inspiring by the same measure, none more so than when we’re in the company of an eloquent man who spent several homeless years living under Hammersmith bridge with one cassette copy of their 1988 album 101 to treasure.

“My biggest fear was running out of batteries,” he says.

After managing to get a ticket for their Crystal Palace concert in July 1993, he says it made him realise how life was for living, since he couldn’t tell who was rich, homeless, at their first gig or at one of many. He concludes: “It’s as if we were all as one.”

We’ve always been pitifully slow in this country to acknowledge the cultural impact and economic contributions that our leading bands make, both domestically and internationally. This film confirms it.