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DIRECTED BY: Mick Duffield

FEATURING: Crass

PLOT: Collages of images reflecting the confluence of Thatcherite policies and the consumerist habits, all intended to accompany live performances by a punk-agitprop band.

COMMENTS: Crass never wanted to be called “punk.” In fact, performing music appears to have been only one part of the collective’s messaging arsenal. Their numbers included artists, writers, and campaigners alongside musicians, and you’re as likely to remember Crass for their iconic logo, the fake wedding song they tricked a UK romance magazine into distributing for free, or the mocked-up phone conversation between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan that pranked the State Department, as much as anything they put out on vinyl. (This AllMusic bio is an great introduction to the band’s political and artistic ethos.) Music was a means to an end, specifically the end of an elitist system engineered to propagate itself on the backs of the masses. The one time they really poured themselves into making a cohesive, artistic musical statement, 1982’s “Christ – The Album,” the Falklands War had commenced and concluded before the band had any opportunity to comment. That seems to have been assessed as a failure caused by mission creep, and going forward, there would be no confusion about what was most important.

It is in this context that we must assess Christ – The Movie, a film that exists mainly to provide background color at Crass concerts, rather than to be screened to an attentive audience. Moviemaking was Duffield’s contribution to the collective, and although the band eventually released Christ – The Movie as a standalone home video some years after disbanding, it’s best to imagine these images being projected on the wall of a dank, crowded club while vocalists yell out the lyrics to songs with titles like “Nineteen Eighty Bore” and “It’s the Greatest Working Class Rip-Off.” It’s best to do this because without that context, the images start to get repetitive and rather dull.

Christ – The Movie is actually a compilation of three separate montages by Duffield. “Autopsy,” the first and shortest of the trio, is also the most haphazard. News clips trade off with banal conversation, with snippets of commercials and dissections. “Autopsy” does contain the most surprising and entertaining diversion, as a camera captures the visitors to a modern art gallery being serenaded by a distorted version of Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.” Amidst this, a security guard realizes he is being filmed, and his intense discomfort at finding himself on display hints at the spotlight Crass would like to shine on the unjustly powerful.

The next segment, “Choosing Death,” comes closest to succeeding as a film to be watched on its own. Images of war machines and torn bodies are interspersed with clips from a video encouraging couples to take out a second mortgage in order to rehab their kitchen. The juxtaposition makes clear that the military-industrial complex is counting on the power of shiny things to distract the masses from the atrocities being committed against them and in their name, and the buildup to catastrophe is both inevitable and strangely satisfying. After all, if these are our priorities, maybe we deserve our fate.

The final segment, “Yes Sir, I Will,” best exemplifies the band’s intention for the film: to accompany performances of the album of the same name. Crass eschews any kind of tunefulness, with thrashing guitars and slamming drums that nearly drown out the furious speeches that pass for vocals. With lyrics like “Television is today’s Nuremberg!” and “To ensure control, the superpowers need to maintain the imbalance,” anger at nearly every aspect of capitalist society is the point. To help focus the rage, Duffield repeatedly returns to the same image to represent all that is wrong in the world: the snooty, impassive face of Margaret Thatcher. The passionately despised former prime minister appears on the screen time and again, usually superimposed over footage of military machines, angry protestors, and emaciated children. But it’s almost 45 minutes long, and a little goes a long way. Images of Thatcher and the world she has wrought give way to more of the same, and if you’re not there to scream and mosh and engage in Crass’ version of the Two-Minute Hate, then the novelty wears off pretty quickly.

Crass was, from beginning to end, utterly committed to their ideals, and it’s a mark of their authenticity that the visuals of Christ – The Movie match up so well with their other artistic endeavors. As a snapshot of just why the most left-leaning voices were so angry during the early 1980s, Duffield’s work is peerless. But these movies fall prey to diminishing returns, and the whole is less than the sum of its parts. If you really want to get the maximum value out of Christ – The Movie, I think you’re gonna need a very loud and pissed-off band down front.

(This movie was nominated for review by Robin Hood sun, who said it was “definately weird.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)