rewrite this title in Arabic One to One: John & Yoko film review — riveting portrait of post-Beatles idealism, activism and binge-watching

Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Film myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.In autumn 1971, John Lennon and Yoko Ono left the UK for New York, where they rented a two-room apartment in the West Village. The move brought them a sense of liberation and rebirth. They acquired a new social circle of scenesters and political activists, including poet Allen Ginsberg and Yippie figurehead Jerry Rubin; and Lennon delightedly gorged on the vast all-you-can-eat menu of American television.His TV watching is the connecting thread of One to One: John & Yoko, a riveting documentary co-directed by the prolific Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void, Whitney) and editor Sam Rice-Edwards. This was a turbulent period in US history, and the couple’s activities are counterpointed with a montage of contemporary TV footage, including coverage of the Vietnam war, the brutal suppression of the Attica State Prison uprising, and Richard Nixon’s re-election.This climate underlies Lennon’s newfound vision of himself as a “revolutionary artist” — giving rise to some impassioned but creaky protest songs, and such projects as an abortive Free the People tour, which would literally free incarcerated people who couldn’t post bail, city by city. (We hear an enthused Lennon pitching the idea to manager Allen Klein, explaining that the details can be worked out along the way.)Also featured are phone calls recorded by the couple; footage of them and their circle (including a priceless Ginsberg recitation about western toilet habits); and their own TV and radio appearances, in which they give a candid, articulate account of themselves at this juncture. Ono emerges powerfully as a beleaguered figure, talking about her bitter experience of British racism and sexism, and about her young daughter Kyoko, whom she was trying to locate after the child’s abduction by her father.One TV programme that particularly affected the couple was Geraldo Rivera’s devastating report on the mistreatment of children with mental disabilities at the Staten Island institution Willowbrook State School, leading them to organise two benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden. The sharply restored concert footage, with Stevie Wonder guesting, is tremendous, featuring Lennon and Ono at their most heart-wrenchingly personal (on “Mother” and full-force screamathon “Don’t Worry Kyoko” respectively). Haunting sequences also minutely recreate the couple’s Bank Street apartment, floor strewn with books and LPs.Despite the grimness of that political moment, the film maps a brief idyllic parenthesis of idealism and revitalised possibility after The Beatles split. It is all the more poignant, given the imminence of Lennon and Ono’s temporary split — and the looming presence of Mark Chapman just a few years later.★★★★★In cinemas now