Signed up to the library streaming site and put in London (1994). It's a documentary where the narrator returns to tumultuous London after being absent for 7 years. I'd seen a clip or two on but never the whole thing. It's pretty much 80 odd minutes of footage from day-to-day life in the city I grew up in during the time I grew up.
Fact is when we visited again in 2018 it weren't the same. Not really. The old shit's still old but the vibe is off. It ain't home anymore. The past is a country I can't hop a plane to and have a holiday in. A topic that funny enough the docu actually goes over with its own subject's memories of places which are no longer in the city when it was recorded.
I reckon London's just like that, though? Something about the ancient history of a city that has been alive so long you can still feel its pulse and the new and old mingle so seamlessly that it haunts you with its familiarity juxtaposed with its strangeness. Like an old friend you've not seen for decades. The voice has changed, the way they carry themselves is different, the light in the eyes ain't the same but the eyes themselves are. Eff knows I know that well. I grew up noting the scar tissue of The Blitz, still apparent in where history was wiped out in an explosion and you see Edwardian structures and modern chic glass monoliths protruding like new growth in an ancient specimen.
Makes me feel even more of an expat to know the London I grew up in only exists in film. For better or worse I grew up a stones throw from "Cardboard City" the homeless settlement which is now home to the UK's biggest IMAX. My home was within the grimey nostalgia of a piss soaked graffiti stained city. It was just second nature-- as was the constant threat of IRA bombs.
I don't think I miss the messy old piss and cigarettes of the town I grew up in. Not really. But I identify with it. Call it home.
I think London just has that effect on people.
I don't glorify that shit. Na, on the contrary, I recognize it was a small hell that's been sanitized as best it could be. But I feel at home with the imperfections. It's kinda making me a tad homesick, y'know?
To take a touch to actually sit with that and kind of think about why this docu catches bits of the place in my memory that I can't see even walking down those same streets I wanted to go through the film and take a couple screenshots of places I'd been to in my childhood that show up and show them in the film versus how they look on Google Street Maps today. See that vibe change I mentioned.
Movie on the left, Google on the right.
I had no idea they took down The Elephant. This is legit how I'm finding out about it. I clicked about to see when it happened and get a shot with the elephant statue to prove it was the right spot. Here's an image from 2020 with the shopping centre and statue still standing.
My memory is in locations. I close my eyes and I see places. That damned area is always with me. I can still see the giant billboard for 1994's The Mask next to the old swimming pool that used to be there. I remember before I even left England seeing a social media post about the frog slide being tossed in a skip and people of the area mourning a childhood memory.
Guess it all has to go in the end. Elephant just got wrecked. First with the big bougie flats then the Heygate Estate getting taken down and I guess the old shopping centre's gone too, ey?
But yeah, the photography in the film was gorgeous and caught a slither of a world condemned to the past. To quote the movie "There is no town in the world which is more adapted for training one away from people and training one into solitude than London." She raised me and part of me will always be there, wandering the halls of the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre; a place that can only possibly exist in memories.
Anyway-- that's a big ole wander down memory lane. I love my city. One day I'll see her again.
