Premiering at the 2024 Venice Film Festival in an out-of-competition slot, Kevin Macdonald’s remarkable documentary, co-directed with editor Sam Rice-Edwards, charts a year in the lives of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, beginning in 1972, shortly after their move to New York. Combining a wealth of archive material with some thrilling concert footage, the film captures the couple at a fascinating time in their lives, when Lennon was forging a post-Beatles life for himself as a social activist.
Macdonald and Rice-Edwards hit upon an inspired structure for the film. A caption reminds the audience that during their well publicised hotel “love-in”, when John and Yoko remained in bed as a protest, they watched an awful lot of television. To that end, the film employs a channel-flipping aesthetic to switch between the various archive and concert videos, a smart decision that gives the film a strong sense of pace.
