The Lost City of Melbourne * * * *

Whelan the Wrecker making "improvements" to Melbourne. 

If I were a documentary film maker this is a subject I would want to take on.  But I'm not one, so I am glad someone else has done if for me. Gus Berger has done a very good job too.

Knowing what the city of Melbourne was once like - and how it was wantonly destroyed - has always filled me with both anger and grief.  Much of this documentary vindicates my feelings, but at the same time it helped me understand some of the reasons why it happened.

Melbourne boomed in the 19th Century, earning the term "Marvelous Melbourne".  At one stage it was the richest city in the world per capita, it was also the fastest growing city in the world. When people built in Melbourne they built with grandeur.  The streets were lined with beautiful Victorian buildings.  

If it was still like that today, tourists would come from all over the world to look at it.  But it isn't.  

In the 20th Century they knocked most of them down, frequently replacing them with rubbish. From being "marvelous", Melbourne became one of the dullest cities in the world. 

Encouraged by idiot politicians and stupid councilors, Melburnians really did believe that those beautiful buildings were an embarrassment.  A symbol that Melbourne was stuck in the past and the boom was over.  Bring in Whelan the Wrecker, and let's start again. No one objected.

Yet, after watching this film, I must concede that the buildings had become so unusable and unsuitable  no one would want to rent them.  The size and shape of the internal office spaces, the plumbing, the lack of elevators, the challenge of introducing electricity and the height restrictions, not to mention fire safety compliance. Four storey buildings were sitting on blocks of land where a twenty storey building could be built - one with an inside toilet, even.

Nevertheless, to see this excellently collated footage, photographs and drawings of what once was, is to make you wish they had tried harder - or even built the new buildings elsewhere. I mean, what would happen if Venice or Bath had adopted an attitude of, "it's all too hard", or even worse, "Let's get modern"?

Further to the fine hotels, coffee palaces, mansions and commercial buildings, other losses were the beautiful cinemas of the past. (The director actually owns a cinema so that's his thing) . This documentary gives a fair portion over to their loss. I guess we can thank the introduction of television in the 1950s for that.  

There are truly excellent interviews with informed historians. At times I felt as though I was being spoken to by a grief counsellor. I'm not being facetious when I say that. I genuinely appreciated their insight and explanations.