Until the Light Takes Us (Saturday, December 5, 2009) (186)

This is a documentary about the Norwegian so-called Black Metal scene - a genre of heavy metal that reached it's apex in the early-to-mid-1990s. Similar to 'Death Metal', the bands and style are an extension of a horror-movie aesthetic with almost all of the songs about death, ghosts, zombies, pain, suffering and blood. Unlike Death Metal, though, the genre is specifically low-budget purposely using the poorest-quality sound equipment and specifically rejecting polished production values of more mainstream music. In addition, each musician takes on a ghoulish persona onstage and many paint their faces with makeup to look like corpses. Basically it's the French New Wave of heavy metal music.

It seems like all of the music is in English, and though they are fluent in the language, the Norwegians create wonderfully unironic and garish names for their bands: Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum (I don't know, but it sounds dark and evil), Immortal, Satyricon, Ulmer.

In the early 1990s, as the sound was taking shape, one band rose to the top of the mountain: Mayhem. Their singer, Death (that's his real name - really!), pioneered the corpse persona and would go onstage singing about murder and mayhem (get it?!) and mutilate himself with real knives. Fun! The guitarist and leader of the band, Euronymous (is that a mix of Europe and anonymous? I'll go with it!), also helped to create the band's dark image on stage and in his Oslo record shop, surprisingly called Hell. His most notorious act in this period was after Death (who was clinically depressed) shot himself to death in his bed, Euronymous took a picture of the bloody scene before calling the cops - then put the picture on the cover of his next album. Sweet!

Euronymous became a local legend and school kids from far and wide would pay tribute to him by visiting him in Hell. Always looking to impress their idol, they would follow his anarchic orders for destruction and mayhem, ultimately setting fire to dozens of churches in the country as part of a nationalistic, anti-Christian teen sentiment. The media at the time, saw these acts, and their ties to Death Metal as satanic, which it really wasn't. It was more a reflection of a supreme malaise in the small corner of youth culture and rejection of the processed, commercial and international zeitgeist they saw pervading their culture and heritage.

This film follows the history of the movement through interviews with the musicians in the movement. It shows how the scene went from a small, local one to a much bigger one with some global appeal, inside the world of heavy metal, at least. It also shows how the themes and history of the genre have been appropriated by artists in recent years (including Bjarne Melgaard and Harmony Korine) as the aesthetics of the movement have become rather co-opted for commercial purposes. (Incidentally, I saw one shot of a Black Metal musician at the Brooklyn Museum's 'Who Shot Rock & Roll' exhibition - though maybe this isn't totally commercial.)

The movie is very interesting, though probably not good for someone who doesn't have at least a passing curiosity or tolerance for heavy metal. I love how this sub-genre of music has an entire universe of stars, villains and mythology. The film gets this across very well, using first-person interviews along side videos from rehearsals, concerts and still photographs. The interviewees are very frank as they talk about their own lives and histories, but also speak directly about their anti-Christian, almost-anti-Semitic views. At one point, one of the musicians talks, a propos of nothing, about how he hates 'that Central American (sic.) artist woman with the bushy eyebrows'. Hilarious!

The directors, Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell, are either fans or respectful observers (much more respectful than I'm being here). They tell the stories of this movement as if it was about feuds between band-mates and artistic rivals in American classic rock of the 1970s. The story is ultimately very universal: boys from a rural place move to a big city, hit it big and gain followers. Things start going wrong, churches get burned and a few people die - all this and a lot of t-shirts and make-up!

Stars: 2.5 of 4