This is, to be honest, a lot more interesting than I expected it to be. Not that I ever expected Arcade Fire to be tedious, but I was a little nervous about the potential for spectacular failure when I heard they were making a film.
And it is very much a film *by* them, rather than *about* them.
It's not a sequential document of their last tour, and it doesn't offer any real insight into how these guys and girls function or think. Aside from a few very sweet little moments - Win and Tim waltzing, Régine's pre-show nerves - there's no sense of cosy fly-on-the-wall intimacy. I didn't come away knowing an awful lot more about what makes these folks tick beyond lawnmowers and whirlyball, and it's pretty telling how many shots of bandmember's backs we've got.
But let's face it, anybody who's even vaguely familiar with this band wasn't really expecting a Behind The Music special. No, that would be far too easy and normal. Rather, it's a sequence of brief making-of shots and live footage, interspersed with abstract images and short films. The band never once address the camera, and there's no central narrative; the only discernible structure comes from a series of answerphone messages from fans that punctuate the film.
The result is an intentionally chaotic bundle of clever visual setups, documentary clips and all too curt glimpses of what the business of making this music actually entails. There's a lot going on in these seventy-something minutes, and as such, it's both brilliant and immensely frustrating. It does sometimes give a sense of what it's like to be in that kind of band, and it's rather odd to see just how much effort is required to look like it comes naturally - turns out it's not all fun and pipe organs, being in The Arcade Fire. Sometimes it sucks. The process of hammering out songs, too, that's touched on, and it's amazing to me just what it takes to get those songs to the stage. But neither could really be said to be the point of the exercise, and as such, I don't think it could correctly be called a documentary.
The show footage deserves a special mention, because it really is as furious and spectacular as it ought to be. After seeing just exactly how hard Jeremy Gara is working back there I'll never take his contribution for granted ever again. For the most part though, perhaps aware of just how freely available great live videos of their shows have become, they don't dwell too long on these clips, and the most interesting moments are the ones aimed specifically at the film's audience. The phone messages from fans vary from the knowingly wry to the achingly heartfelt, and the visual gimmicks - a pretty awesome acoustic version of Windowsill in a moving glass lift, geddit? - are endlessly imaginative.
It's one vexing flaw is that it's simply a little too ambitious - it's got too many ideas at once. Most of it works, and works spectacularly, but not all of it. The opening sequence is brilliant and arresting - and there are plenty of other highpoints that almost match it - but then the ending is a slightly awkward anti-climax that doesn't quite sit right, at all. Whenever it touches on something interesting - Win & Régine on the brink of an argument over a single note at the end of a song, being one example - it then has to leave it behind to move on to something else. And there's a lot of that; they've tried so many things they couldn't quite filter out the ones that didn't fly, and couldn't pause for the ones that were worth exploring further.
Another example that drives me especially mad; a properly stunning montage of American gameshows, televangelists and noise that eventually shifts into a shot of Win wading through a mass of adoring fans who greet him like a big army-booted Jesus. Seriously, you should see it; I kept expecting people to fling themselves out of wheelchairs or grow back leprosy hands. It's amazing. But there's no comment on it; no real insight into what that feels like for some twenty-something year old dude from Texas to have several thousand people completely in his thrall, or whether the irony is quite so readily apparent from his perspective.
An experiment then, and one which - for the most part - succeeds. It's got so many ideas that it doesn't quite know what to do with them, and that's hardly damning criticism. It's visually stunning, the tone fits the band perfectly, and at times, it's a genuinely extraordinary glimpse of a very weird life.
It wouldn't really stand on it's own, there's not a whole lot for you here unless you're familiar with this band and have some interest in how these folks make a living. It is, however, a fantastic visual companion to their music in general, and Neon Bible in particular. Messy, imaginative, flawed and inspired, just like the album itself.
Speaking of which, the music is fantastic.
And it is very much a film *by* them, rather than *about* them.
It's not a sequential document of their last tour, and it doesn't offer any real insight into how these guys and girls function or think. Aside from a few very sweet little moments - Win and Tim waltzing, Régine's pre-show nerves - there's no sense of cosy fly-on-the-wall intimacy. I didn't come away knowing an awful lot more about what makes these folks tick beyond lawnmowers and whirlyball, and it's pretty telling how many shots of bandmember's backs we've got.
But let's face it, anybody who's even vaguely familiar with this band wasn't really expecting a Behind The Music special. No, that would be far too easy and normal. Rather, it's a sequence of brief making-of shots and live footage, interspersed with abstract images and short films. The band never once address the camera, and there's no central narrative; the only discernible structure comes from a series of answerphone messages from fans that punctuate the film.
The result is an intentionally chaotic bundle of clever visual setups, documentary clips and all too curt glimpses of what the business of making this music actually entails. There's a lot going on in these seventy-something minutes, and as such, it's both brilliant and immensely frustrating. It does sometimes give a sense of what it's like to be in that kind of band, and it's rather odd to see just how much effort is required to look like it comes naturally - turns out it's not all fun and pipe organs, being in The Arcade Fire. Sometimes it sucks. The process of hammering out songs, too, that's touched on, and it's amazing to me just what it takes to get those songs to the stage. But neither could really be said to be the point of the exercise, and as such, I don't think it could correctly be called a documentary.
The show footage deserves a special mention, because it really is as furious and spectacular as it ought to be. After seeing just exactly how hard Jeremy Gara is working back there I'll never take his contribution for granted ever again. For the most part though, perhaps aware of just how freely available great live videos of their shows have become, they don't dwell too long on these clips, and the most interesting moments are the ones aimed specifically at the film's audience. The phone messages from fans vary from the knowingly wry to the achingly heartfelt, and the visual gimmicks - a pretty awesome acoustic version of Windowsill in a moving glass lift, geddit? - are endlessly imaginative.
It's one vexing flaw is that it's simply a little too ambitious - it's got too many ideas at once. Most of it works, and works spectacularly, but not all of it. The opening sequence is brilliant and arresting - and there are plenty of other highpoints that almost match it - but then the ending is a slightly awkward anti-climax that doesn't quite sit right, at all. Whenever it touches on something interesting - Win & Régine on the brink of an argument over a single note at the end of a song, being one example - it then has to leave it behind to move on to something else. And there's a lot of that; they've tried so many things they couldn't quite filter out the ones that didn't fly, and couldn't pause for the ones that were worth exploring further.
Another example that drives me especially mad; a properly stunning montage of American gameshows, televangelists and noise that eventually shifts into a shot of Win wading through a mass of adoring fans who greet him like a big army-booted Jesus. Seriously, you should see it; I kept expecting people to fling themselves out of wheelchairs or grow back leprosy hands. It's amazing. But there's no comment on it; no real insight into what that feels like for some twenty-something year old dude from Texas to have several thousand people completely in his thrall, or whether the irony is quite so readily apparent from his perspective.
An experiment then, and one which - for the most part - succeeds. It's got so many ideas that it doesn't quite know what to do with them, and that's hardly damning criticism. It's visually stunning, the tone fits the band perfectly, and at times, it's a genuinely extraordinary glimpse of a very weird life.
It wouldn't really stand on it's own, there's not a whole lot for you here unless you're familiar with this band and have some interest in how these folks make a living. It is, however, a fantastic visual companion to their music in general, and Neon Bible in particular. Messy, imaginative, flawed and inspired, just like the album itself.
Speaking of which, the music is fantastic.
