This documentary about the making of the singer-songwriter’s album The Hope Six Demolition Project provides few insights
Here’s a disappointingly uninsightful documentary about the making of PJ Harvey’s reportage-style 2016 album The Hope Six Demolition Project. It’s directed by Harvey’s friend, photojournalist Seamus Murphy, who she travels with on research field trips to
Afghanistan, Kosovo and low-income black neighbourhoods of
Washington DC. But the film’s political engagement is oddly wishy-washy, while fans hungry for intimate access to the singer will leave frustrated – Murphy politely respects Harvey’s cool, emotionally reserved public persona.
In Washington, Harvey meets Paunie, a teenage girl who dresses like a boy and commands total respect on the street. (It’s Paunie’s dog, Money, that gives the film the title.) In Kosovo, an elderly woman keeps the keys of neighbours who fled the village during the war (and presumably won’t be coming back). Murphy shoots with compassion and journalistic curiosity, his camera inching closer and closer to the face of a boy in Washington who is explaining how his dad, cousin and friend were all shot dead on the same block – two murders, one suicide.