Scala!!! (2024)

Charting the rise and fall of the eccentric and unique Scala cinema in King's Cross, Jane Giles and Ali Catterall's exhilarating documentary is a celebration of the joys of alternative film and underground culture. The film opens with an excerpt from Margaret Thatcher's "Where there is discord, may we bring harmony" speech, on the eve of one of the most tumultuous decades that the UK has experienced; one that included social upheaval amid the Aids crisis and the introduction of Section 28.

This ensured that the Scala was an especially important place for the gay community, but as one of the many talking heads in the documentary states, it was the place to go if you were in any way "weird" by virtue of the fact that anyone and everyone was welcome; if you felt ostracised in society for being different, the Scala was a place you could turn up to wearing whatever you want, and looking however you wanted, with no judgment. Most importantly from a cinematic point of view, it was the hangout for such future film makers as Ben Wheatley, Peter Strickland, Joanna Hogg and Joe Cornish to name but a few. The documentary features over forty talking heads from people like Adam Buxton, Stewart Lee, John Waters, and Kim Newman and many more, and also contains plenty of footage of the time- both in the venue itself and the content it played. To see people falling asleep during one of the legendary all nighter events ("Shock Around the Clock" was a particularly successful series), be off their head on drugs, have sex in the darkened corners of the theater or burgle their way in through the fire exit to avoid paying for a ticket was absolutely standard. Stewart Lee describes being at the Scala during a screening of Thundercrack! (1975) (a Horror/Porn flick that Lee himself admits he wouldn't watch now) and the entire audience being repeatedly shouted at by a punter at the front who kept standing up and questioning why they were all watching this filth, but continuing to sit down and watch the unfolding mayhem. The man in question had wandered in, Lee speculates, to just get a bit of kip for the night. Past frequenters of the cinema are also on display here, and everyone cheerfully discusses the illegalities of the activities on show. From everything from underage entry to open drug taking, the Scala was a place that didn't necessarily implement an 'anything goes' attitude; more that it simply allowed their customers to do whatever they wanted within reason, and any sort of behaviour that threatened to spill over into serious trouble was curtailed before it ever did. That said, there's one harrowing story told of when a depressed young man committed suicide, jumping from the highest window of the building that leads to one of the more poignant pieces of interview in the documentary. Learning about the programming of the Scala (and the programmes themselves) is especially enchanting; as well as supposed filth such as Thundercrack! the Scala showed all manner of film from David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977) to more sexually charged awakenings like Un chant d'amour (1950), to such cult classics as The Warriors (1979) or Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). The Scala eventually folded in 1993 after an illegal screening of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971), which had been banned in the UK since 1973. Giles was actually prosecuted for failing to obtain permission to show the film, and it was the beginning of the end for the cinema in the form that was so well loved by many. John Waters stipulates in a scene during the end (whilst on a live call with Giles) that he too was prosecuted for some of his work in film, stating that to have that happened to you as a film maker, is a without doubt a good thing. It's a fitting end to an excellent tribute; I wasn't born when the cinema was at its peak and barely knew anything about it, but Scala!!! does what all good documentaries do and reels you in to a fascinating story even if you have no interest in the subject matter at all. And as for those who remember these days fondly, one would imagine that this a serious blast of affectionate nostalgia, swept up in a somewhat frustratingly brief ninety odd minutes. But this is a minor quibble and proves what a good job Scala!!! does in finding an audience; you really want to see and hear more from the cinema, and anyone with even a passing interest of cinema will undoubtedly find plenty here to enjoy. 8.0/10