Les Années Dernières à Muswell Hill : Time Travel is Dangerous reviewed 406u8

In these interesting times , as the Chinese apparently call our current global grimness, who wouldn't want to escape into the past,or even  the future? The odd couple running a (real life) bric a brac store in the London suburb of Muswell Hill literally to do visit previous ages, but not out of ennui or any interest in the historic pasts, but simply to purloin any pot, pewter, or pantaloon they can get their  hungry hands on and carry back in the extraordinary  era-shifting machine they happened to find  in their ramshackle shop. In the course of this highly entertaining, and handsomely realised indpendent British feature, they do discover that TIME TRAVELLING IS DANGEROUS. In Chris Reading's well-paced and colourfully realised skit, the means of transport is not a big budget limousine but but what looks like a dodgems car from a local fun-fair. Apparently, as this witty mockumentary reveals through sundry silly flash-backs, the backwards-rushing contraption was invented on a popular home-study TV programme (called The Future, Today), but trialled disastrously and jettisoned in the back of Megan and Ryan's vintage store.

The enterprising pair, at a loss to satisfy their landlord's increasing demands,happen to find that the machine  now works, and make regular forays into the past to forage for spears, coins,ancient clothes that they can sell- at 100% profit- to customers avid for retro artifacts.They are inveigled into ing a local science club, some of whose have more experience of the contraption than they realise, and the plot is off and running. The photography and special effects punch higher than a modest budget would suggest, and there are some occasional sequences(with the participation of Historical Re-enactment Societies ,I suspect) with spectacular crowds of medieval folk,or 19th century military enthusiasts in accurate and plentiful detail, and even a complete Western (as in Wild West) town that reminded me of Sergio Leone's Andalucian locations, but I suppose is somewhat nearer to Muswell Hill.

The players are excellent ,all well cast ,and the roster includes such British stalwarts as Jane Horrocks, and Johnny Vegas inter alia, with a splendid voice-over narration from Stephen Fry, and the fruity tones of Brian Blessed (OBE, no ,less) that bring an ageless,comical monster to life.It has the dead-pan, straight to camera insouciant humour of such successful TV mockumentaries as What We Do In The Shadows, and some of the zaniness of Terry Gilliam's cinematic confections.The colour photography-in every age visited- is splendid, and the original music and closing song are pleasant.This has to be the funniest indendent film since Eaten by Lions (directed by Jason Wingard and coinidentally well featuring Johnny Vegas). Chris Reading and the Shakespeare Sisters who co-wrote it,are talents to welcome and cherish.

TIME TRAVEL IS DANGEROUS premiered at the 2024 Austin Film Festival and enjoyed a gala preview in the Art Deco ex-Odeon, now the lavishly restored and renovated Everyman mini-cineplex which crowns Miuswell Hill, and  is now on cinema release in the UK since 28th March 2025            99 minutes.

PHILLIP BERGSON