Rebel Dread review – hopeful look into the past and future of punk rock
Music documentarian Don Letts gets a documentary all of his own in William E. Badgley's overstuffed but charming and funny profile
A great musical historiographer himself, Don Letts is finally granted a documentary of his own in William E. Badgley’s Rebel Dread, following Letts’s life from the late ‘60s to the present and exploring how he came to be at the very centre of huge cultural upheavals in both the UK and US. Letts managed Acme Attractions, a clothing store in Chelsea that attracted both punk and reggae clientele, two disparate cultures that Letts immediately saw the similarities between before picking up a Super 8 camera to document the rise of punk in England.
Through this, he met The Clash, who kickstarted a music video career for Letts that would see him work with some of the biggest bands of the day to create truly iconic music videos, from “London Calling” to Bob Marley’s “One Love.” It’s a lot to pack in to a short documentary (barely passing 80 minutes), and Rebel Dread does sometimes feel a little like a Wikipedia page come to life, but Letts himself is such great company that it’s hard to mind too much.
From archival footage of Letts hanging out with The Beastie Boys, to the energetic talking head interviews with Letts and all his close friends and collaborators, you get the sense of a restless and funny pioneer. His love for music, but punk especially, is infectious and also helps populate Rebel Dread’s soundtrack with a really fantastic song selection.
Letts provides insights into the creative processes of himself and the bands he worked with, and his visits to Jamaica and Namibia as a first-generation Black Brit make for an intriguing look at how immigration can distance a person from their roots even if they make active attempts to embrace those cultures. You do sometimes end up wishing that a film about such creative minds would itself dare to be more formally interesting, but this is still a smart and charming documentary that closes out on a hilariously blunt piece of advice and unabashed hope for the future of music.
Rebel Dread is released in UK cinemas on 4 March.
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