The road to ruins

Director Patrick Keiller made his name with London (1994) and Robinson in Space (1997), semi-documentaries recounting the peripatetic investigations into ‘the problem of England’ conducted by the unseen narrator and his fellow academic Robinson. The late Paul Scofield’s voiceover, rich in literary reference and understated satire, combined with meticulous shot composition to produce unclassifiable portraits of a country forever in decline from its literary and industrial pre-eminence.

In the new film Robinson in Ruins, Vanessa Redgrave assumes Scofield’s role as narrator. Robinson’s research has narrowed in scope to the counties of Oxfordshire and Berkshire, but has taken a turn for the supernatural: he is convinced that the fall of meteorites coincides with periods of social upheaval. Accordingly, much of the footage comes from sites of civil unrest such as the Newbury Bypass protests and the Otmoor Riots of the 1830s.

The typically digressive narration takes in everything from Epicurus to Lidl, but there is less sly humour this time and, crucially, no soundtrack.