Nam Nguyen

The Holidaymakers: A Film about The Clientele

Nam Nguyen

The Holidaymakers, a 2005 fan documentary about the Clientele, begins with home-video footage from the early ’90s of the nascent London band — probably just out of their teens at the time — rehearsing in a suburban backyard while the light of a stunning summer’s day begins to fade. Thanks to a combination of outdated technology, a worn and possibly oft-copied videotape, and the perfectly imperfect shadows and sunspots that only nature can provide, the footage is unintentionally, unbearably poignant: a surviving materialization of the blurred memory of lost youth, still tangible but beginning to erode, and all the more beautiful for its apparent fragility.