Robinson in Ruins

John Reith‘s original mantra for the BBC was to ‘educate, inform, entertain’. With Robinson in Ruins, the third film in the Robinson trilogy, Patrick Keiller succeeds in achieving two of these objectives. Following on where the two previous pieces in the trilogy, London and Robinson in Space, left off, Robinson in Ruins documents the faceless Robinson’s journeys through Berkshire and Oxfordshire after the discovery of his films in an abandoned caravan. Narrated by Vanessa Redgrave as the wife of a fellow researcher, a historical picture is painted of the milieu as she speaks over the various landscapes the still camera captures. Steeped in Marxist ideology, how capitalism has shaped Britain is told through anecdotes around each shot. And what is done here is clever, a shot of a spider forming its web while discussing the collapse of the housing market serving as an example. However, while Robinson in Ruins gives an interesting history lesson, close to two hours of endless streams of information feels more like an arduous lecture than entertainment. Redgrave throws more knowledge our way than we care to remember, and the intonation within her words fails to draw you in. At times, the extended shots of farmers at work – arguably some of the most entertaining shots – lack purpose and only serve to add to a film that is over-long, over-informative and could be cut into a series of more digestible shorts. Indeed, films need to be intellectual to some extent and work to stimulate our minds, but in lacking entertainment serve as little more than a two hour lecture in human geography.