Clio Barnard’s interweaving of multiple strands in 2001’s Lambeth Marsh begins with a swiftly moving camera close in along the curving path of marshland water. Against a background of bird call, poet William Blake’s relationship to the borough is related by female voice-over, as wind smooths a slowed-motion, snaking path across the long-stemmed riverside reeds. An aerial shot follows the course of the Thames as the text of a Blake poem appears on screen. The camera veers off and over the Lambeth skyline, and a shifting camera records an older female figure’s progress through contemporary city streets. A series of encounters subtly blend the edges of dramatised incident and poetic documentary, as characters emerge and paths cross and recross, weaving together a tapestry of personal testimony and vivd, colour-rich imagery. Raspberry tarts, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, are handed over at a restaurant back door, linking apparently unconnected threads of experience. Visual detail sparks memory, narrated in voice-over, and edited to co-occur in contemporary reality and in Blake’s lush green, golden-lit marshlands. Camera gaze travels along a row of teenagers, passing cigarettes; the faces of shopkeepers; a series of sleeping bags in shop doorways. The text of narrated memory is printed along the length of a builders partition, and appears, inverted and shimmering, reflected in a grass-fringed pool of water. A schoolgirl appears as running feet on iron stairs; a hand on a railing; floating face-up with dark hair streaming across a reflection of the sun. A street sweeper brushes green shards of glass, and memory surfaces as a young boy’s running feet through long grass. Set among the marshgrass, an incongruously stylised landscape of brick chimneys appears as an immigrant describes his first airborne view of London. A car headlight, and a long-gowned female’s high-heeled sandal stepping into marshland reeds accompanies a chef’s childhood vision of England. Illustrated by a bucket; a yellow sponge, and a smearing of suds, a windscreen-cleaner’s description of daily experience intercuts between the darkness of a city street and the sun-drenched light of the marsh. Bare feet at the river’s edge, and an exotic fish, silver-white scales in close-up. The schoolgirl’s dark hair, and a mermaid’s tail flash past. The older woman floats, face-up in river water. A final aerial shot in early morning half-light travels along the path of the Thames, as a Blake text shimmers on screen. The camera veers off across the tower blocks of Lambeth and the work ends in darkness.