Culture

The Regent Theatre - Octagon
Saturday 24 August 1pm

Rating: 3/5

The House of Radio is the newest delight from French documentarian Nicholas Philibert. Philibert spent half a year filming the inhabitants of France’s public radio station, allowing the viewer to gain a better insight into the world of high end professional radio that is heard, but rarely glimpsed.

If you’re expecting an hour and a half of a couple of guys sitting behind microphones then you’re wrong: the group of people working at the station is large and varied. We observe news readers, opera singers, orchestras, administrators, technicians, journalists, interviewers, interviewees … the list goes on. All are fascinating, and seem not to give two shakes that what they’re saying about their co-workers is being recorded. A favourite moment is when the woman coaching the voice actors mutters to her friend that he needs to speak to them as if they are children.

I think a lot of the joy in this film is the same joy that I derive from His Girl Friday, Man of Steel and Beyonce’s music video for “If I Were A Boy” – it’s fun to watch people who are really good at their job (Beyonce would make a goddamn awesome cop). As for those employees not doing their job so fantastically … well, that’s fun to watch as well. There’s a sick pleasure in being a fly on the wall the first time a news reader get heavily critiqued by his straight-talking boss (“I told you not to do this. You did it. Never do it again” – ouch!). It’s extremely interesting to see how radio professionals make good radio, which includes quashing bad radio.

The film is beautifully structured as “a day in a life” – we go from dawn to dawn in the busy station. We come back to the same people constantly which gives the film focus, with cute interludes of one-time appearances from others (such as a blind newsreader reading a brail news report). However, I am a volunteer radio DJ and remain unconvinced as to whether the film will be as captivating for those not interested in the medium. If you’re interested in radio then this film is amazing; if not, well, it’s still pretty good.