Sunday, June 7, 2009

Anvil!

I try to be as omnivorous as possible when it comes to music, but I've never been able to develop a taste for heavy metal. To be honest, I haven't tried very hard. Metal seems to exist exclusively for the benefit of a particular cohort of awkward males. It may be mildly toxic to the rest of us, but for them it is essential sustenance--a fact that Anvil!, a documetary about a metal band that just missed hitting it big, never lets you forget.

After a brief moment of glory in the early 80s, sharing the stage with Bon Jovi and Scorpions, Anvil's original members "Lips" Kudlow and Robb Reiner watched their band slide back into complete obscurity. The film focuses on their lives today, entering their fifties and working blue collar jobs as they struggle to keep their rock dream alive. We see them go on a semi-disastrous European tour, followed by a recording session during which they spend as much time squabbling as making music. After all the agony--as well as a sizable debt incurred to pay for the record--they can't get a label to distribute it.

On one level, the story is as grim as it sounds. Could there be anything more excruciating than watching a couple of overgrown boys try to reconcile their sweet dreams with the drudgery of real life? No middle-aged person could fail to see his own struggles mirrored in the pain of Kudlow and Reiner. What saves the film from being unbearable is its acknowledgment of the love between the two superannuated metalheads. These guys have failed at everything they think is important, but they've achieved something precious that eludes most of us: a profound, enduring friendship.


4 comments:

Julie H. Rose said...

I could barely get through the trailer, and yet I still love hard music that most women do not like. That almost swarmy boyish love of rawk n' roll ("God made rock and roll for for us, everyone!") is beyond me, even though I was a punk "musician". Seeing it in grown-ups, and the enduring wish to be a big head-banging star, along with the Rocky-type music. . .nope, I could barely tolerate it. And yet, you found it charming. Very interesting! I might have to blog about it!

BitterGrace said...

Trust me, I did not expect to like it. The trailer is a little deceptive, as trailers tend to be. It's hard to describe the spirit of the movie. You kinda have to experience it. A friend called it "very sad," but I didn't find it so.

I'd love to read your take on this whole scene, and on the movie, too, if you can make yourself watch it. ;-)

Julie H. Rose said...

You'd have to come over an pop it into my dvd player! I really do not enjoy watching rock documentaries, and I've always done so because a friend pretty much forced me into it. Really.

But, I am curious. . .

BitterGrace said...

Maybe you could get Jaime to preview it for you, so you could get a second opinion before taking the plunge.