Gilbert and George

This is simply one of the most engaging and insightful films about artistic practice ever made. Living sculptures whose life is also their art, Gilbert and George form a uniquely eccentric, exciting and enduring partnership. This film, made to mark the unveiling of a new body of work based on bodily fluids and called 'The Fundamental Pictures', traces their history back to the first meeting at St Martin's School of Art in 1969. It goes behind the Georgian facade of their East End house to watch them in their studio creating the new work and follows them through their everyday lives: meals at the Market Café, walking through the streets of Spitalfields, reviewing their collections of erotic literature and Arts & Crafts pottery and drinking champagne at home with Shere Hite. They talk about their compulsion to 'take art to the edge', to show the viewer his innermost thoughts, and commentate on shows of their photoworks in London, Shanghai and Bologna, enjoying the fruits of their enormous popularity across Europe. Critics such as Andrew Graham-Dixon, Sarah Kent and David Sylvester add their voices to the continuing debate - are Gilbert and George radical revolutionaries or bastions of the old morality? - and Norman Rosenthal of the Royal Academy praises the artists' truth and grandeur. The film ends with a song by Gilbert and George and their infectious giggling.