F ilm-maker and climate activist Josh Appignanesi brings us a riveting bulletin from the frontline of modernity and postmodernity, from the capital of the 21st century itself: Dubai – a city where “oil money is converted into concrete, glass and false optimism”. It seems to be the place on everyone’s lips, the megalopolis at the centre of contemporary conversation, endlessly and casually invoked as the epitome of heartless capitalism and reactionary politics, a city beyond irony or principled objection. And yet, until now, I don’t think I have seen a film try to show what this extraordinary place actually looks like, with woozy, dreamy, narcotically Ballardian and surreal images of this cityscape in the desert.

Colossal Wreck, with its reference to Shelley that is made explicit at the

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