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Very well executed

Perfectly adorable

Just so...so bad

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Being a Glastonbury attender for many years. I thought Julian Temple captured the whole essence of Glastonbury (of old) and you just wish it could be sunny & beautiful every year watching great bands. It is quite an occasion ;o) But like all the news, features, pictures, etc in the media of Glastonbury. This documentary does tend to show more of the wacky, cosmic, religious, colourful, muddy, naked people than the usual normal festival goer who just gets p*ssed and stoned (Otherwise it would be boring documentary!)Glastonbury has now reached a crossroad and it's a double edged sword. Michael Eavis states that he had to get rid of the travellers because of trouble and he also built a huge fence to keep out the riff-raff. In a way we can totally applaud that because who wants our possessions stolen or 400,000 people at an event that's meant to hold 150,000? But in doing that Glastonbury has become a very corporate, yuppy and trendy event. What's happened to the HEART & SOUL of Glastonbury? I've also heard that the fabulous Los Vagueness is now no longer there ;o(So it's ironic that in this year (2008) Glastonbury has not sold out(yet).So please watch "Glastonbury" again to bring back long lost happy memories ;o)

The annoying thing about this film is that it doesn't satisfy the lovers of the concert footage or a documentary about Britain's main music festival. Temple seems to be totally in awe of people dressed up in funny/silly costumes and these are repeated over and over again. The scene with the puppet player dressed as a hobo is for instance repeated twice. Why? Meanwhile we often hear interesting music in the background wondering who is playing and hoping to see some proper concert footage. No chance!The final nail in this coffin of a "rockumentary" is seeing Kate Moss a number of times, what has she got to do with a film about Glastonbury.

Glastonbury feels a lot like a home wedding video: If you were there, watching it back will probably be a fantastic experience. If not, expect to struggle in places.The movie is a mix of music, background events and smiley faces in silly costumes. While the smiley faces are important if you intend to create a sense of the atmosphere, two hours of this starts to drag. As you might expect, there is a fair bit of music, although inevitably only a tiny proportion of all the acts that have appeared at the festival over the years. Some clever production techniques are used, such as mixing performances from different years together, and using specific songs to provide a narrative to other festival scenes.But this subtle narrative is about all there is to guide the uninitiated through the movie. This might be acceptable for the music, but not the interviewees. The movie seems to revel in this to the point of arrogance: Early on, it includes a scene in which the organiser, Michael Eavis, is talking to festival goers who have no idea who he is - much like me at that point in the movie.Background events and history are covered, but not very well explored. Genuinely interesting themes, such as the involvement of travellers and the growing commercialisation of the festival, are dealt with rather too quickly. There is a lot of social history here, which could have made this quite a challenging documentary. But perhaps if Glastonbury had covered these fully, I would be bemoaning the lack of music or complaining it didn't convey a festival atmosphere?

Living near the Glastonbury Festival site gives me a rather different perspective from that of the visiting Festival fan. And this film offers both views - that of the "local" and that of the visitor to mid-Somerset. Covering all 30 something years of the festival's life, Julien Temple's film distills many hundreds of hours of professional film, archive film and home movie into just over two hours and really makes you feel that you spent a whole weekend there. Just like the Festival, there are different experiences for different audiences and those who love the festival for rock music will have some considerable reward with lovely filming (and soundtrack) of the main stage acts. Others who spend their time in the more alternative areas of the festival are also rewarded with extraordinary performers. A few of the punters are great value too - look out for the young man who had been there far too long although he could just about remember that he arrived "last Sunday". Most interesting for me was the piece of contemporary social history that the film delivers. The first years of love and peace, followed by the travellers' convoys, the gradual growth of the corporate influence and the era of the all-encompassing wall chart our own memories of the festival through more than three decades. Some of the earliest archive footage is wonderful with great characters drawn from Pilton, the village near Glastonbury that hosts the Festival. Television coverage from those years will show you how much life has changed - as indeed have the TV presenters themselves. And the journey that Michael Eavis has himself taken over this mighty era is nicely covered too. The stars of the show are, for me, the family who have the unenvied responsibility of clearing the loos early each morning. Father and his two sons - not men to tamper with - note that it's not a bad job "early mornings and plenty of people to talk to" but the graphic footage of their work might make you think it's the worst job in Somerset! Edited in a way that doesn't do the work for you - years mixed together, no names for interviewees or performers - means you have to keep focused but at the end of the film I was left with a clear and enjoyable image of the journey the festival and its people have taken.