As punk rock enters the second half of its fourth decade, its importance and impact are finally beginning to be explored in the kind of artful and meaningful ways it has always deserved. It’s as if filmmakers have finally caught on that punk is more than music, more than fashion, and more than New York, Los Angeles, and London. Of course, it is all those things, but it’s also much, much more – something anyone with some time under their belts would gladly attest to.
At this very minute there are small town scenes all over the world, each living and dying on the backs of determined kids who refuse to play by anyone’s rules but their own. These scenes are dripping with more creativity and heart than Hollywood could muster in a year, and operate almost completely free of external influence. This D.I.Y. spirit is an amazing thing to witness, and one of the most rewarding things a person could ever hope to participate in – but it’s also something rarely recognized outside of its own carved-out subculture. Because the ideals and convictions of punk are almost always misrepresented on film by outsiders looking in, this reality is somewhat by design. However, sometimes the movies get it right, and when they do, I can’t help but feel like I’m sixteen again with the entire world in front of me. With this rebellious and independent spirit in mind, I now turn your attention to Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché.
Celeste Bell and Paul Sng’s documentary about the legendary X-Ray Spex frontwoman is far from conventional. Told mostly from the perspective of Bell, the late Poly Styrene’s daughter, I Am a Cliché is both a love letter to an amazing woman, and an artful attempt at understanding the intricacies of a troubled life. Through spectacular archival footage, boxes of ephemera, and reams of journal entries (read by Ruth Negga), Bell dives deep into Styrene’s boldness and fragility by examining her mother’s impact on the look and sound of early punk rock, and the enduring legacy she left behind after her exit from the scene and her eventual death in 2011.
However, where other documentaries often veer into lionization, I Am a Cliché stops short of this by dedicating a generous portion of its runtime to Styrene’s many mental health struggles and the impact they had on her daughter. It’s Bell’s candid and discerning observations about her mother’s misdiagnosed bi-polar disorder and the effects it had on her upbringing, along with its relatively non-linear format, that elevate I Am a Cliché from a simple rockdoc to a fascinating and artistic scrapbook of fantastic punk rock remembrances (with additional stories and insight provided by pioneers like Pauline Black, Nenah Cherry, Vivienne Westwood, Kathleen Hanna, and Don Letts) highlighted by an inspiring level of courage, creativity, and independence. You’d be hard pressed to find a more colorful character in punk’s long history than Poly Styrene, making I Am a Cliché a near-perfect entry point for casual onlookers or curious would-be participants alike.
James is a writer, skateboarder, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.