Meet me in the Bathroom

United Kingdom, 2022, 105' 

The early noughties were the last gasp of rock music. A pre-Spotify era during which one would entertain the illusion that the spirit of rock’n’roll – guitars and arrogance, dissolute lifestyle and unforgettable concerts – could still prevail over our increasingly digitized lives and listening habits. Interpol, The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Moldy Peaches are a bunch of names from New York, the city struck at the heart with the attacks on the Twin Towers that rediscovered its role of caput mundi by reconnecting to tradition, i.e., the era of Lou Reed and Ramones, of the filthy bathrooms of CBGB’s or Max’s Kansas City, finding new life in the exploits of young followers. Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern have adapted Lizzy Goodman’s book on this epic, adding some extraordinary archival footage to a film that only speaks in the present tense, featuring period interviews, reevoking things that were supposed to shatter the world (the millennium bug) or actually transformed it (9/11). Shying away from sterile retromania, Meet Me in The Bathroom takes us there and makes us experience that fiery moment for the duration of a movie.