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Dec 08, 2021 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

“We are the children of Fritz Lang and Werner von Braun. We are the link between the ‘20s and the ‘80s. All change in society passes through a sympathetic collaboration with tape recorders, synthesizers and telephones. Our reality is an electronic reality.”

The manifesto above paraphrases Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter, and is seen tacked to a wall in a character’s flat near the beginning of 1979’s stark Radio On. It’s a declaration that may also be applied to the film, and its director, Chris Petit, has said as much. This is a movie that’s as much about pylons, cassette tapes, and radio signals as it is one man’s lonely journey across the broken, suburban sprawl of Discontent-era Britain.

The first thing that will strike most first-time viewers of Radio On is its soundtrack: David Bowie’s German-language rendition of “Heroes” plays loudly, in full, as a camera drifts around a dingy apartment (almost) devoid of people. It feels intentionally jarring, as the camera moves just quickly enough that there’s no chance to focus on anything but the song. Whenever there is music in the movie, it’s made the focal point; it primarily arrives through a car stereo, a pub jukebox, or even via Sting himself, playing an Eddie Cochran-obsessed gas station attendant who serenades our hero with his laid-back cover of “Three Steps to Heaven.” In almost every case save for the movie’s unnerving opening, when a song plays in Radio On, the characters on screen are listening to it as attentively as we are.

Writer-director Chris Petit pays as much reverence to the songs in the features on Fun City Edition’s new Blu-ray, explaining how big a role they played in the film’s genesis; how he was able to coax music from Kraftwerk and Bowie; how he was able to license his pick of songs from the fledgling Stiff Records for something like 50 pounds a pop. Heck, the songs are even given the star treatment in the opening credits. They’re unmissable, even with the picture muted.

In contrast, it’s downright unsettling when music isn’t playing—which is for the majority of the movie. If a radio isn’t playing or muted music isn’t thumping through the wall of a club, you can’t help but be painfully aware how eerily silent so many scenes of the scenes in Radio On are. It gives long shots an unnerving quality that’s hard to put a finger on. During dialogue—which happens rarely for the film’s first 40 minutes—every line is given extra weight, as the empty air seems to linger after every utterance no matter how important or mundane. Viewers are forced to pay close attention to things like news reports, weather updates, and sports scores, simply because they offer such welcome breaks from the long stretches of silence.

Radio On occupies a unique position as one of the only British road movies. It has the look and background—Petit having come from film criticism—of a French New Wave film, as well as New German Cinema, sharing some cast and crew previously used by producer Wim Wenders in his ‘70s oeuvre. It’s its own beast, however—and unmistakably British.

There’s not as much in the way of plot in Radio On, so much as an impetus: after his brother’s sudden suicide, Robert (David Beames) gets into his car and heads west, to Bristol, in search of answers to questions that he hasn’t fully formed. Along the way he meets a handful of unusual sorts: a Scottish deserter, the Cochran-obsessed fuel clerk, a German woman searching for the daughter he ex has taken from her. Every one of these encounters feels like it could be the start of something big, but all end as unceremoniously as they began. Radio On is a film that seems to dwell on the inconsequentiality of it all. It relishes in malaise.

Radio On is an incredibly well-shot film, and Fun City’s Blu-ray is a beauty—the dark highways, empty quarries, and industrial blight that fill the film probably never looked as good as they did here, captured in striking black-and-white by cinematographer Martin Schäfer. Included are a brand new video interview with Petit, another archival one, and newly-commissioned commentary from Kier-La Janisse. You’ll also find a short film—unusually dubbed a “Remix” of Radio On—created by Petit with Wire’s Bruce Gilbert in 1998, a trailer, image gallery, and a host of booklet essays. Radio On is a truly enigmatic work, compelling in ways that aren’t easy to put a finger on—the provided context from these materials are helpful for wrapping one’s head around why Radio On works as well as it does.

(vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/fun-city-editions/products/radio-on-fun-city-editions)