Film: The Ballad of Genesis and Lady-Jaye

By Beth Keating.
For the last few years, certain documentaries have screened in Melbourne focusing on a related set of figures absolutely essential to my cultural development: in 2009, it was the Brion Gysin documentary, Flicker; 2010 - William. S. Burroughs: A Man Within. This year's Melbourne International Film Festival hosts the Australian premiere of The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye - a documentary exploring one of the most central influences and inspirations in my life to date, Genesis P-Orridge, and his amazing relationship with his late wife, Lady Jaye.

Genesis is an epicentre, tying together the seemingly disparate countercultural obsessions that have played major roles in my development as an individual. Gysin and Burroughs; psychedelia; industrial and experimental noise; Brian Jones - even the Brian Jonestown Massacre; mysticism and the occult. Before I discovered Genesis, I never realised the link between them all. Genesis opened me up to correlation, interconnectedness. Much like Burroughs, he embodies a subterranean danger - completely unwilling to compromise, defiant of categorisation, unique, brave. Completely individual.

In my mind, Genesis is one of the most important countercultural figures of the last forty years. He's my hero, and I'll promote anything that assists in increasing his recognition and his influence.

For more information about the film, visit the official site here. For information specific to the documentary's screening at MIFF, visit the festival's site here.