The Road: A Story of Life and Death (PG) 75 mins ****
The road in Marc Isaacs’
highly engaging documentary is the A5, the 300-mile Roman legacy connecting
Holyhead to Marble Arch. Isaacs installed his camera at various points to
record its travellers: marching Muslims, Buddhist monks seeking nirvana in
Colindale, an alcoholic ex-navvy whose loneliness is horribly compelling, and
rarely observed this honestly. As proposed by his 2001 doc Lift – which sought
out characters within a tower-block’s confines – Isaacs may be British cinema’s
pre-eminent people person, locating strangeness, melancholy and joy within both
the urban landscape and those who inhabit it. Almost every subject here might
have merited their own film, but the brisk diversity is central to what emerges
as a subtly pointed, humorous and above all humane contribution to the immigration
debate: the road has been retraced as a lifeline, pumping fresh blood into the
city’s heart.
The Road: A Story of Life and Death opens in selected cinemas from today.
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