James Delingpole James Delingpole

A Soviet version of Martin Parr: Adam Curtis’s Russia 1985-1999 –TraumaZone reviewed

Affectionate, mocking, mystifying and bleak but not boring – and it’s refreshing not having someone’s directorial opinion rammed down your throat

Adam Curtis’s TraumaZone is like a Soviet version of Martin Parr’s photos, part affectionate, part mocking, part mystifying. Credit: Screen grab from archive footage/Curtis Productions

Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone – even the title makes you want to scream – is Adam Curtis’s Metal Machine Music: the one where he frightens off his fans by abandoning the trademark flourishes that made him so entertaining and instead goes all pared-down and raw and grim.

If you don’t know or remember what those trademark flourishes were, let me refer you to a cruelly funny pastiche which you can easily find on YouTube called The Loving Trap.

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