“I don’t want to become a parody.” lars ulrich you vocalize a thought that is more real than you are willing to admit. Back in 2002, what started out as a teenage garage band pumping adrenaline and testosterone playing loud covers of British heavy metal bands has turned into a trio of strangers recording seedy spots for a radio station and they were left as public enemies when entering into a legal dispute with an online music file-sharing service.
Nobody wants to see themselves in the situation where you have lost control of yourself, or that you no longer enjoy what you do and who you do it with. That feeling drives many of the things that Metallica decides to bring to light at that time, from the creative through a new studio album to public image control with the documentary ‘Some Kind of Monster‘, but actually he’s been there his whole career.
this monster lives
Available to view via Netflix, the documentary features directors Joe Berlinger and bruce sinofsky in “fly on the wall” mode to capture the moments of a band at an important existential crossroads. One of the most massive metal groups in the world, and a freak in control of their own brand and image (evident in how Ulrich talks about the band as a concept that is almost appreciated more as product than art), they are starting to blow up and the smoke can be seen from the street. The directors go on to capture how that is fixed.
Medium music documentaries often have unrestricted access to their stars and their footage, but they are also operating primarily in the service of solidifying a perception. ‘Some Kind of Monster’ is not entirely free of this, although it is also appreciated that it has been able to capture moments that not many would want the rest of the world to see happily. The documentary manages to portray a band that can’t fend for itself to know where to go and that at times he can’t help but be his own version of Spinal Tap.
The almost two and a half hours of documentary capture both the recording process of St Anger, the eighth album by the Californian group, like the therapy sessions they decide to attend to repair the internal tensions that have been growing since their bassist left. It is not particularly revealing as far as the creative process is concerned (it is not that the creative result goes a long way), but it is interesting in its way of equate working in a successful music group with a marriageespecially in how it needs more care as more time passes.
‘Some Kind of Monster’: couples therapy
Ulrich and James Hetfield they are presented above all as the couple who believes that they no longer know each other, while kirk hammett he acts like the withdrawn son who just wants everyone to get along. Your producer Bob Rock he tries to please different egos, in the purest style of Matthew Macfadyen’s character in ‘Succession’ where he wants feel part of the family at all times.
It is at times to see a group of people lamenting and drying their tears with a handful of bills, but from there he gets an unexpected source of humor. Moments like the appearance of its first guitarist, Dave Mustaine, feeling like a failure while a billboard says that his band has sold millions of records, or Hetfield wearing a very expensive and tacky car with the conviction that it must be shown off show the field. of distortion of reality in which they have entered. The band cannot avoid falling into these strange paradoxes from the beginning, where they want to recover the energy of a garage band in a modest studio to end up in another one that is better equipped and professional.
Even though it may come out unintentionally, it’s the most effective and genuine thing a band like Metallica has been able to deliver in decades. And not precisely because of vulnerability. The same is not among the best music documentaries in history, but it is one that finds space to tell something different that is not reduced to the assignment on duty and that it pays to see beyond personal interest in the group or even music in general.
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