Julien Temple always is a bit l'enfant terrible of British cinema. Not because he made such great movies as after all he largely will be remembered as the man from popvideos (David Bowie, Janet Jackson), the overblown musical that is Absolute Beginners or the dreadful Earth Girls Are Easy but BBC Films gave him the opportunity to shoot Pandaemonium which tells the story about the poet Coleridge and his famous poem Kubla Khan. Whether it is historical true or not is beyond my knowledge but this movie tells the story about some genius poet who lived in the time of the great Lord Byron and whose talents were exploited by his friend who served him opium. At these days opium was the coke and we see how a talented poet with a wish for the family life turns into a total wreck. All by all Temple can control himself (just at the end credits he once again looses himself completely into nonsense) and tells the story in a rather modern way without too many details that can spoil the fun for those who are unaware of the British neoromantism. But mind you, "Pandaemonium" has its weak moments, perhaps a bit too many to be good, but still worth watching.
Review of Pandaemonium
