well . . . firstly it was fairly obviously a 'punters eye view' of glastonbury rather than a 'this is how it works' view, and as i've never really been a punter in that sense i'm maybe not best places to judge.
however, fair play to Julian Temple for a rather good effort, some glaring omissions but lots of things that i thought should have been there were. I thought the issue with the travellers was put across fairly and well thought out (possibly really for the first time to the general public) and the evolution of the festival was chronologically pretty much spot on.
but there were a few things i thought should have been mentioned -
like the Kids Field, not a single shot of the place i spent most of my childhood festivals, not a single clip of the amazing things that kids climb on or watch
(but then i think this film was a 20-something view)
no mention either of football, when the most recent game was said to have the largest single audience (in one place) ever recorded for one match.
not a lot of emphasis on the green/craft/avalon fields and the weird and wonderful things going on, although there was a bit on massage and healing.
The workers steel/leftfield tower thing was never shown.
and other things like that . . .
conversely it was a bit top heavy on the tipi field, on chris martin and on the paid for entertainment like the natural theatre co (and suchlike) doing odd things. and there was some very UNglastonbury footage mixed in (i spose for context) inc stuff from bristol and scotland!
we ended up sat next to Michael and Patrick Eavis in the cinema and Michael did a bit of spiel at the start (a very confused q&a session from people who learn about glasto from NME) and once again i was convinced that whilst he's a great farmer he is not cut out for public speaking.
the film was funny in places, sad in places, brutally real in places (the failed fencejumper asking what happens when he gets out of the landie and security replying 'nothing whilst the cameras on') and euphoric quite a lot of the time. perhaps it didnt deal with the other side when it all goes wrong enough. perhaps it was slightly (very) through rose tinted glasses but it was a mammouth task and they pulled it off.
anybody else with much festival experience seen it??
wiskers
oh and i was sad that there was no footage of Archaos driving the bikes up the pyramid