[ film + tv ]
The future-forward fashion of punk icon Poly Styrene PHOTOS BY FALCON STUART
THE DAY THE WORLD TURNED DAY-GLO X-Ray Spex leader Poly Styrene gets the doc treatment BY MAT THEW MOY ER
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here’s a picture of Poly Styrene shot as she retraces her mother’s footsteps, a onstage with X-Ray Spex in 1978 by framing device fleshed out by off-camera Denis O’Regan that depicts the singer interviews with Styrene’s friends and family, in full iconic flight: DIY-modified vintage and a wealth of rare video and photographs 1950s clothing, gigantic hair, lips curled into from Styrene’s personal archive. A chance encounter with a Sex Pistols a sneer exposing braces and eyes ablaze with fury. You’re welcome to your posters show at the age of 19 changed Styrene’s of the Clash and the Sex Pistols, but this life. Soon enough she was auditioning is proof positive of punk’s initial promise musicians to join what would become her as a truly new type of music. Listening to unforgettable first-wave punk band, X-Ray X-Ray Spex’s futuristic albums, full of jittery, Spex. Born of British and Somali heritage, Styrene embraced the angular, angry critiques DIY life fully, running of our never-ending POLY STYRENE: her own clothing shop consumerist dystopia, I AM A CLICHÉ and designing her own only further drives that 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 2 pop-art-as-nightmare point home. Enzian Theater stagewear. I Am A Cliché 1300 S. Orlando Ave., Maitland Something that often tells the story of enzian.org gets lost in discussions Poly Styrene’s (née $12 of Styrene and X-Ray Marianne Elliott-Said) Spex is how incredibly far-too-brief life beautifully, a fitting tribute and elegy to one of the young she was when X-Ray Spex hit the most unique performers in popular music to scene. During an interview with a stuffy date. Co-directed and written by Styrene’s British television host, Styrene is asked if she daughter Celeste Bell, the film follows Bell is, in fact, a rebel. Styrene flashes an utterly
surprised and delighted smile, gives a teenaged laugh and says, offhandedly, “I suppose I am a bit, really.” The Spex made an immediate impact with Germfree Adolescents in ’78, charting with singles like the breathless liberation anthem “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!” and thrilling punk audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. The world could have been theirs, but Styrene, experienced up-close-and-personal the capitalist nightmare she was warning about in song, and it overwhelmed her. She suffered a breakdown and walked away from her band. Styrene was mother to Bell by her mid20s and released a solo album (Translucence, 1980) that was cruelly overlooked. Ensuing years would see her embrace her spirituality, journeying to India and joining a Hare Krishna commune in the U.K. Styrene would, in the early 2000s, make her way back to her family and her music, and the final act of the film is marked with triumph and tragedy writ large. Styrene, in the end, was a hero, an icon, an artist, a mother and a human. This is her story and you need to see it. arts@orlandoweekly.com orlandoweekly.com
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FEB. 2-8, 2022 ● ORLANDO WEEKLY
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