Black Audio Film Collective Handsworth Songs (1986), Part 1

Handsworth Songs is often described as a filmed essay, perhaps because the overall impression is of a discursive, literary journey. There are moments of poetic beauty, such as the sequence of photographs documenting key moments in the lives of a family. The photographs mounted like a series of boards in an art gallery, slowly rotate as the camera drifts through them. Portraits are from the fifties, faces full of optimism and laughter. When the documentary moves on to interviewing the older generation, one searches the faces for familiar signs.