The Gold Machine

Fiction and documentary combine in Grant Gee’s exploration of capitalism and colonial power throughout Peruvian history.

Grant Gee is a filmmaker who has increasingly mapped out a highly individual path. Born in 1964, he first made his mark in film and video with works of a popular kind propelled by his love of pop music. In particular, he became known for pieces centred on Radiohead and Joy Division. In more recent times, however, he has established himself in a very different sphere by directing documentaries which have been decidedly intellectual in their appeal. 2011’s Patience (After Sebald) stood out as a meditation on the writer W.G. Sebald while 2015’s Innocence of Memories featured the museum in Istanbul created by the author Orhan Pamuk. Now with this latest work of his, The Gold Machine, Gee moves away from the literary world to present instead a political piece of a highly unusual kind. At the same time he retains the intellectual tone and, although no writer is a key figure here, he quotes the American poet Charles Olson (1910 - 1970) and has borrowed the film's title from him.

Although The Gold Machine is classified as a documentary, it incorporates a strange fictional layer by presenting as a central figure a writer named Andrew Norton played by Michael Byrne. We see him at home in St. Leonards-on-Sea pondering on the difficulty of saying anything new as he tells us in voice-over that, although drawn to writing about conditions in the Amazon, he is also aware that the key book about it has already been written, that book being In Tropical Lands published in 1895 by his own great grandfather. He is unable to travel himself but arranges that his daughter will stand in for him by flying to Peru. Once there she will follow the same route that his ancestor had taken and we duly follow her. In a bizarre way, what we see of her journey carries an echo of the popular TV format whereby Michael Portillo takes railway journeys to look at places once described by Bradshaw in his guide!

The oddity of the approach here is all the more apparent when one mentions that the film’s narration is credited to Iain Sinclair and that it was Sinclair's great grandfather who wrote about Peru even though the film attributes this to the ancestor of the fictional Andrew Norton. It's also relevant in this connection to point out that The Gold Machine is stated to be based on research by Farne Sinclair who is Iain's daughter and may well be the figure we see here unless this too is an actress standing in like Byrne.

Be that as it may, the film’s purpose is to blend modern images of that part of Peru reached by the expedition of 1891 with a history of the exploitation of the country from the 1840s onwards. From extracting guano from the soil to the control of railways, canals and harbours and the imposition of Christianity through the influence of such land-acquiring bodies as the Peruvian Corporation of London, the story is one of colonial power. That and capitalism are the targets here and occasional footage of other times and other places emphasises that we are invited to see the events in Peru as an example of a wider history.

Sinclair has often been associated with Andrew Kötting and, while nothing here feels quite as avant-garde as Kötting’s work, The Gold Machine does seek to be accepted as the work of an artist. In that endeavour, it is  in some ways undoubtedly successful: in particular, Gee remains the photographer here and the quality that his eye brings to the work is never in doubt. More questionable, I think, is the tone of the writing. One readily accepts the comparison when something is described as being akin to "a vision of hell out of Zola" but there are too many instances when the language used comes across as too high-flown by far. In addition, however much one may share the sympathies of the filmmakers, one might wish to assert that the best art avoids reaching the point at which a sense of relentlessness becomes counter-productive because it is so persistently didactic. But, that said, there is real weight in this exposition of Peruvian history and the art behind the film’s images is never less than impressive.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Featuring  Michael Byrne, Elena Mihas, and Stephen Dillane as narrator.

Dir Grant Gee, Pro Janine Marmot, Narration written by Iain Sinclair, based on research by Farne Sinclair, Ph Grant Gee, Ed Grant Gee, Music Leyland Kirby.

Hot Property Films-Dartmouth Films.
92 mins. Netherlands/UK. 2022. UK Rel: 2 September 2022 Cert. PG.