Wild Things / Muslim School / Four Weddings

Sarah Murch: Executive producer, Blakeway North (a Ten Alps company)

Grosvenor Avenue looks much like any other North London street, but back in the 1970s, it was home to a group of revolutionary young radicals who decided to set up a commune and raise their kids collectively. The kids shared mums and dads, and also a surname – they all became ‘Wilds’. The movement spread across the UK.

Wild Things is a hugely enjoyable film that tracks down some of the Wild kids to see what became of them. With a lovely lightness of touch, great interviews and some gorgeous old photos and archive, we get to meet the now 30- and 40-somethings.

From feisty Chrystal, once breast-fed in turn by each member of the peace-group, to Morgan, today studying philosophy at Cambridge, the Wilds seem like a delightful bunch, all affected in different ways by their unorthodox childhood.

Muslim School chronicles a year in the life of the Nottingham Islamia school through the eyes of two new pupils. We meet perky and animated seven-year-old Zara, who quickly puts us right on hijabs, hellfire and hand-washing, and 12-year old Aysha, a Muslim convert who struggles to fit in and whose timetable now features Arabic and Islamic Studies.

I was reminded of Michael Apted’s Up series, and after I had finished watching, I was keen to find out how life would pan out for Zara and Aysha.

Tanya Stephan’s film certainly delivers interesting portraits of the girls and their families, but as a film, I was desperate for more actuality sequences, narrative development and less repetitive commentary.

Four Weddings is based on the Come Dine With Me recipe – four brides attend each other’s weddings, scoring their competitors’ big days. And the prize? A five-star honeymoon. Page three girl Mel has a posh church do, Lorna ties the knot in a cave, Ada has a traditional African day and trucker Amanda’s joint stag and hen do raises a smile; I bet she and boozy partner Brian end up back on our screens before too long!

It’s a confidently formatted, well executed feel-good show, and feels robust enough to play for a while yet.  

Hussain Currimbhoy: Film programmer, Sheffield Doc/Fest

You think they have generational angst? Spare a thought for the children of hippies in the Channel 4 First Cut doc Wild Things. The flower power parents who were kettled into the revolutionary waves of last century decided that everything personal was political, including surnames. So they decided that their kids will have the new surname ‘Wild’. Children of hippies seem the most prone to ending up the polar opposites of their parents. In some cases, the redolence of flower power lingers, but ultimately the offspring end up a bit corporate, normal and nuclear, but filled with a loss of identity. First-time director or not it is an enjoyable, funny film and well produced. 

After the success of We Are Together (winner of Sheffield Youth Jury Prize at Sheffield Doc/ Fest 07) and now Kim Longinotto’s Rough Aunties, Rise Films have returned with Muslim School. It carefully follows a group of teenagers over a year as they attend a British Muslim school. It attempts to display the difficulties in adapting one’s ‘Britishness’ with one’s religious beliefs – a challenge that transcends ethnicity.

Comfortable characters with no fear of the camera make for engaging viewing. With or without the BNP in the EU parliament, this is a very pertinent doc, though predictably, films like this go for characters with the simplest interpretations, a basic ‘home country’ attitude to Islam. This amounts to little controversy. Sad, since there are smarter Muslims out there writing, talking, directing, and thinking who could present more acute reflections of a misunderstood religion.

UK weddings have come down recently after a boom at the turn of the century, but Four Weddings still has cachet. This show promises and delivers as it plays with some rather wild brides to be. It’s executed in a high-octane, rapid-fire edit fashion we’re all used to – I expected nothing less. This purpose-built doc is like a custom crafted 4x4: brash, loud and designed to scare neighbours but once it’s hurtled through, it’s forgotten in a few seconds.

While they’re all good films, I’m afraid the conversations they raise have been heard before.