London Film Festival: Largo

Filmed over a period of months in the soon to be closed and relocated club in Los Angeles, Largo is a farewell film to a place that built a reputation as a seriously cool nightspot. Resident musician Jon Brion and owner Mark Flanagan filled the stage with all manner of musical artists, stand up comedians and cabaret acts, launching the careers of some and simply revelling in the talents of the rest. Largo by all accounts was an exclusive and intimate venue where the people in the audience were as likely to be as famous as those on the stage, with surprise guests a constant fixture.

Over the course of what is essentially a concert film, the breadth of performers that would play at the club really comes across. Ranging from Jon Brion himself and his circle of musical compadres like Michael Penn and Fiona Apple to comedy acts like Flight of the Conchords, Patton Oswald and probably the highlight of the whole film, John C. Reilly (his tale of Burt Reynolds thinking an Irish accent would suit his character in Boogie Nights is worth the price of admission alone), it seems like it must have been a pretty amazing place to spend your weekends in. And that's the problem. This is a film that feels like it was made for a very specific audience of people that used to frequent the club. The fact that the artists are only identified in the closing credits gives you the sense that if you're not cool enough to know who they are, you've no business watching the film. This isn't helped by what seems like a staunch refusal to show the club itself. Only at the end when the bar staff are clearing away the empty glasses of a departed audience do you get to see the space the film has taken place in. On the one hand, it's great that there's a focus on the artists themselves, but with the stage essentially a big black curtain, it could really have been anywhere; there's little sense of the kind of magical atmosphere the place is reported to have had. Though the sound recording is excellent and goes someway to capturing the feel of a live performance, you're still left with the feeling that you really had to be there to get it.

The sheer number of acts that come and go means that if someone isn't really doing it for you (Gregg Proops, Zach Galifianakis? Not so much), there'll be someone along soon after that probably will (Jon Brion, Mark Everett? Oh hell yes), Even though there is something about the way the film is constructed that pushed me away from it a lot of the time, it is beautifully photographed and the sheer quality of some of the performances pulled me through, and had me revisiting some of the artists on my iPod immediately after; Aimee Mann on dark and rainy South Bank is highly recommended.