AFI Fest 2008: Day 1

First up, congratulations to David R. of Toluca Lake for winning the ticket to see Steven Soderbergh’s Che this evening at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Benicio Del Toro and Steven Soderbergh are scheduled to be on hand so be sure to show up early and drink in the red carpet shenanigans.

Here’s hoping Che lives up to the enormous expectations I have for it. It’s a well-known fact around the LiC head offices that I’m in the tank for Soderbergh so I think the odds are good I’m going to like it.

And now, on to last night’s film.

Until the Light Takes Us
USA 2008. World Premiere. Documentary Competition

Make-up! Distorted guitars! Shrieking! Church burning! Suicide! Murder! It’s all in a day’s work for Norwegian black metal, the heavy metal subgenre born of thrash that morphed from an underground music scene in the late ’80s and early ’90s into a controversial media sensation and beyond.

Of the three main progenitors of the movement examined in the film, one is dead, another is in jail for his murder and the third continues to make music with the bitterness of knowing that the style has been co-opted by the culture at large.

Filmmakers Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites spent two years interviewing those members of the movement who are still alive and the results are engrossing, but I haven’t settled upon what it all ads up to in the big picture.

From the jail cell where he’s serving a 21-year sentence (the maximum under Norwegian

 law) for the murder of fellow musician Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth, Varg “Count Grisnackh” Vikernes unrepentantly recounts his days as a disaffected youth angered by consumerism, the encroachment of American McDonald’s culture and the oppression of organized religions, particularly Christianity. He channeled this energy into his aggressive, influential, anti-establishment music and ultimately a string of church burnings. Vikernes casually justifies these later actions by remarking that it was no different than what the Christians had done to the original pagans.

From there, the tabloids seized upon the “Satanist” angle in the story and exaggerated it. Copycat crimes followed, further stoking people’s fears. Vikernes would eventually be arrested and convicted for the murder of Aarseth and the tabloid sensation would reach its peak - the movement fueled the media and the media fueled the movement.

Meanwhile, Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell of the band Darkthrone seems to have been caught in the middle of it all. He wasn’t interested in the politics, he just wanted to make music only to find his style assimilated into the very culture he rejects.

Even if you’re not a fan of the music (I’m not), there is some great stuff here about rebellion and conformity and the fragile nature of artistry, but there are also some troubling parallels to terrorism and to groups who promote racial purity. For better or for worse, the filmmakers never pass judgment on their subjects, letting them defend or damn themselves through their own words.

The sheer enormity of Che kind of puts a gaping hole in the schedule today so I’ll only be able to catch one other film. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up to Michelle Williams in Wendy and Lucy, Ari Folman’s animated documentary Waltz With Bashir about the Israel/Lebanon conflict and Olivier Assayas’ Summer Hours in the coming days.

I do wish the film had provided a broader context for its subject. As it is, we’re immersed in the world of black metal, seeing it through the perspective of the practitioners with little to give us a sense of the bigger picture either musically or socially. Nevertheless, it entertains and leaves you thinking.

Filed under: Film Festivals
Tags: Until the Light Takes Us
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