A compilation film of Pathé newsreel clips from 1920 to 1972 captures Britain's complex relationship with the Caribbean culture of the time
'It is interesting to know that nine tons of sugar cane produce one ton of sugar, sufficient for a quarter of a million cups of tea, or thereabouts." The awfully proper tones that impart this particular nugget belong to Bob Danvers-Walker, for years the narrator of Pathé newsreels. Surely also the model for Harry Enfield's Mr Cholmondley-Warner, he may not be familiar by name, but the voice is instantly evocative: the clipped precision, the jauntiness, the terrible puns. His unique delivery is the unlikely star of a curious and compelling new film, which takes the curatorial art of the compilation album and applies it winningly to the moving image.
With a touch of Danvers-Walker formality to its title, Mirror to the Soul: Music, Culture and Identity in the Caribbean...
'It is interesting to know that nine tons of sugar cane produce one ton of sugar, sufficient for a quarter of a million cups of tea, or thereabouts." The awfully proper tones that impart this particular nugget belong to Bob Danvers-Walker, for years the narrator of Pathé newsreels. Surely also the model for Harry Enfield's Mr Cholmondley-Warner, he may not be familiar by name, but the voice is instantly evocative: the clipped precision, the jauntiness, the terrible puns. His unique delivery is the unlikely star of a curious and compelling new film, which takes the curatorial art of the compilation album and applies it winningly to the moving image.
With a touch of Danvers-Walker formality to its title, Mirror to the Soul: Music, Culture and Identity in the Caribbean...
- 4/19/2013
- by Tom Horan
- The Guardian - Film News
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