"The 1982 film version of the rock opera Pink Floyd: The Wall is without question the best of all serious fiction films devoted to rock. Alan Parker, a director who seemed to deliberately choose widely varied projects, here collaborates with Gerald Scarfe, a biting British political caricaturist, to make what is essentially an experimental indie. It combines wickedly powerful animation with a surrealistic trip through the memory and hallucinations of an overdosing rock star. It touches on sex, nuclear disarmament, the agony of warfare, childhood feelings of abandonment, the hero's deep unease about women, and the life style of a rock star at the end of his rope.
"Pink Floyd: The Wall was written almost entirely by Roger Waters, the band's intellectual, self-analytical, sometimes tortured lead singer. There is a narrative, although The Wall doesn't underline it. It suggests that Pink has vivid images of his father's ordeal under fire, is raised too protectively, was incapable of a successful marriage, took no pleasure in casual sex, and finally disappeared into psychological catatonia under the influence of drugs [obviously inspired by Syd Barrett - ed.] It's disquieting and depressing and very good." - Roger Ebert
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