Mayfair Curzon (UK Premiere / LFF )

If you are attending any of the LFF screenings this week and want to go in blind then bugger off until you have been.

So the concept of the film is you’re John n Yoko sitting in a two room apartment in New York City having given up the Ascot mansion in 1971. Surrounded by books, records and most importantly, a colour TV at the end of the bed. How does a Beatle and his wife live?

So we spin through early 70s America and J&Y via a channel flipping broadcast – snippets of adverts, news, interviews, live footage and home movies propel the narrative forward. As they were documenting everything they did there is a wealth of material

No talking heads
No retrospective opinion
No context outside of what’s being shown
No captions – people are introduced but plenty are just fleeting visitors
It doesn’t spoon feed you, you have to have a bit of knowledge of the period to maybe get the most out of it

The One To One concert footage looks superb, maybe still fairly grainy in parts but doesn’t have that soften image, everything is sharp with rich colours

And the sound – the film and concert kick off with New York City and blimey, it sounds immense. It’s been ,MAL’d / remixed and the muddy coke addled Spector mix is destroyed. John’s vocal is raw and attacking, you can hear the band properly, the driving drums and lively bass on ‘Come Together’

There is a motif running through of phone calls that J&Y recorded I believe when they thought they were being bugged. These were given to the filmmakers and are just riveting, funny and bring an intimacy that’s gripping. Allen Klein, May Pang, AJ Webberman, Jerry Rubin, John Sinclair all star alongside reports and assistants trying to acquire flies for Yoko’s film

The only song from One To One played in it’s entirety is the mesmerising ‘Mother’ everything else is truncated or cut with news footage so a sympathetic energy ebbs & flows. Loved that a storming ‘ Don’t Worry Kyoko’ ends a movie g section about their missing daughter – and yes, THAT song is missing and not mentioned. A beautiful live rendition of ”Looking Over From My Hotel Window’ is heartbreaking.

There is no distributor for the film yet but they hope to release it in the new year. Kevin McDonald in the brief Q&A said he didn’t want to make just another Lennon documentary to add to the pile. With this he’s made not only a superb Lennon & Ono film but a great snapshot of a time and place in all its messy beautiful horror and joy.

Fucking essential – a film for obsessives and casual fans alike. Oh and please Sean, release the audio & video as well as that STINYC box

NIR’s roving film critic signing off….written between Bond Street and Iver on a train still heading west