The movie
Music FIlm Festival: Who Killed The KLF
Documentary that uses previously unheard tapes to explore the rise and fall of the KLF in the 1980s and 1990s, and then suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth.
Length: 88 min
Country: Great Britain
Language spoken: English
Language subtitles: Dutch
Cast:
Director: Chris Atkins
Release date: 02/09/2023
Description
Documentary that uses previously unheard tapes to explore the rise and fall of the KLF in the 1980s and 1990s, and then suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth.
‘Who Killed The KLF?’ is a fascinating insight into the machinations not only of Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, but of art, culture and capitalism. We follow them on wild road trips to Sweden to “find ABBA”; to Scottish islands with robed journalists; and to Spain to watch the band make a disastrous big budget movie with no plot at all.
As well as the crazy side of the band, we also explore the mainstream fame they had, with frequent visits to TV-programs, huge hits like “Justified and Ancient” and “What Time is Love?”.
The film reaches its dramatic peak after their biggest and best (or worst) stunt yet – after they burn £1 million pounds and then drive a car off a cliff, vowing to never explain themselves. After one too many destructive stunts, a universally loved, quirky, spoofy band, became universally hated.
In the film Drummond and Cauty explain that they stopped when they wanted to stop, they are still friends, and they are getting on with life just fine. The film dives deeper into the philosophy underlying the mayhem: the theory of Discordianism, where chaos, not order, is prized.
For a band as radical as the KLF, the documentary borrows some of this radicalism: seamlessly mixing unseen archival footage with dramatic recreation to shock the audience into questioning what is real and what is not. It has a star-studded cast of contributors and talking heads, all who are in equal measure inspired, confused and repulsed by the KLF, such as Paul Oakenfold, Carl Cox and Alan Moore.
‘Who Killed The KLF?’ is a fascinating insight into the machinations not only of Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, but of art, culture and capitalism. We follow them on wild road trips to Sweden to “find ABBA”; to Scottish islands with robed journalists; and to Spain to watch the band make a disastrous big budget movie with no plot at all.
As well as the crazy side of the band, we also explore the mainstream fame they had, with frequent visits to TV-programs, huge hits like “Justified and Ancient” and “What Time is Love?”.
The film reaches its dramatic peak after their biggest and best (or worst) stunt yet – after they burn £1 million pounds and then drive a car off a cliff, vowing to never explain themselves. After one too many destructive stunts, a universally loved, quirky, spoofy band, became universally hated.
In the film Drummond and Cauty explain that they stopped when they wanted to stop, they are still friends, and they are getting on with life just fine. The film dives deeper into the philosophy underlying the mayhem: the theory of Discordianism, where chaos, not order, is prized.
For a band as radical as the KLF, the documentary borrows some of this radicalism: seamlessly mixing unseen archival footage with dramatic recreation to shock the audience into questioning what is real and what is not. It has a star-studded cast of contributors and talking heads, all who are in equal measure inspired, confused and repulsed by the KLF, such as Paul Oakenfold, Carl Cox and Alan Moore.
