Slowburn Post-War Remix
Weaving together seemingly disparate storylines from across the globe, Adam Curtis’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’s is a meandering historical documentary that provides a greater challenge to piece together than his previous, Century of the Self and Hypernormalization. Not for lovers of linear presentation. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (CGOOMH) is a match for those who are up for an offbeat, analog experimentation. A doc that takes both broad and eclectically specific views of events, it edges along existential questions, where Adam Curtis fans will feel right at home.
In CGOOMH his slow-burn remix of archival footage, poignant musical interludes and assured narration, recount the political machinations and sociological influences across the globe post-war WW2 until now. Curtis eases into his thesis, slowly laying down breadcrumbs along the way of a very winding path. The beauty of the slow reveal comes in the series later half. The hours are well worthwhile when you see its historical tracts converge into unique explanations of current day global power shifts.
A recent interview with Curtis revealed a self-aware man who knows he too is very much a product of his time. Curtis, who is an OG archival footage remixer, remarked on his own place within present-day pop culture’s compulsion to reboot/remake everything.
There’s that moment from about 1992 through to 1996 when you started to get things that constantly referred to other things. Reality and the idea of changing reality began to disappear. To be honest, I’m part of the problem too because that’s pretty much when I started taking on bits of archive and slapping them together, in a knowing way.” – Adam Curtis