Velvet Goldmine is that rare thing: a serious movie about pop music - that almost works

Making serious movies about pop music is an incredibly difficult thing to do. It's the old high culture/low culture debate, that you can't make art out of rubbish. And, indeed, if you look at films like Sir Cliff Richard's immortal Summer Holiday, or the weighty intellectualism of Spiceworld - The Movie, or even any of Mr Presley's thrilling starring vehicles, we would have to say, very simply, that pop in the movies isn't very groovy, baby, at all.

Even the worthy efforts of brilliant and mental mod band The Who, in collaboration with equally mental director Ken Russell, could only produce Keith Moon as a dirty old man and Elton John in platform Dr Martens. Just say no, pop kids.

An exception is Todd Haynes's curious and intriguing film Velvet Goldmine, which sank without trace when it was released here in 1998, and has now been released on video rental. It's an attempt to document, in fictionalised form, the strange interlude in rock history in the early Seventies called "glam". In particular the film tries to document the subculture's self-consciously decadent approach to art and rock music through a thinly veiled portrayal of the drug-fuelled homoerotic relationship between David Bowie and Iggy Pop, both of whom, with varying degrees of self-respect and success, continue to be recording stars.

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers stars as Brian Slade, the Bowie character, whose pouting good looks and fey musical talents are turned into glittery superstardom by canny manager Johnny Divine (a tasty cameo by brilliant transvestite standup comic Eddie Izzard). Ewan McGregor stars as proto-punk Curt Wild, the Iggy character, who has that certain something Slade hasn't, probably a penchant for drugs and self-destruction.

Around the two revolve the cast of supporting glamsters, indulging their bisexual glitter fantasies in 12-inch platform boots - oh, yes, for it was truly the decade that style forgot, and has the space commander shoulder pads and feather boas to prove it. Toni Collette is excellent as Slade's wife, the Angie Bowie role, and Christian Bale is loutish and accomplished as the narrative link, the journalist doing a story on Slade 10 years on, when 10 years before he was a confused young adolescent hanger-on round the scene, a moth round the sequinned flame of the camp glam rockers. There's also a mysterious Svengali character called, improbably, Jack Fairy, who seems to be the Brian Eno character from Eno's early days with my personal fave glam band, Roxy Music. Roxy feature heavily on the splendid soundtrack, too.

The movie moves seamlessly from narrative to dreamy drug-fuelled glitter fantasies to cheesy and hilariously dated pop video shoots, where, incidentally, Rhys-Meyers and McGregor do all their own singing. Ewan, since he's doing Iggy Pop, has an easier time of the singing, but is obliged to drop his trousers and wiggle his wobbly dangly bits in imitation of the Igster's legendary gonzo performance style.

Ultimately the film falls between a few stools. It's an ambitious project, too ambitious to work as a film. It tries to document the era, comment on rock as decadent art form, and tell a compelling story in an arresting visual style full of ambiguous sexuality and spangly style. It's all a three-chord trick too far, but it is an extremely interesting go at turning a strange and wayward episode in subcultural rock history into a film that is always watchable. Which is more than you can say for the bloody Spice Girls.

James Sey can be e-mailed at jsey@mweb.co.za

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