Mistaken For Strangers (15.)
Directed by Tom Berninger.
Featuring Tom Berninger, Matt Berninger and The National. 75 mins
Recently Ken Loach suggested, “they should sack the critics and get ordinary punters in.” I guess it was out of deference to his five decades in the industry that nobody told him they had already done that. First they came for the print journalists but everybody thought they had it coming, so they did nothing. Then they came for the actual filmmakers and the only people left were some blokes online who thought it was all ****ing awesome.
The internet and cheap digital cameras have radically democratized the film making process and dug out some marvelous talent. It has also thrown up plenty of bozo film projects like this. The National are a US Indie rock band, who after ten years of struggle finally hit it big. (No, I haven’t heard of them either but they are famous enough to be on Letterman and get a photo op with Obama.) Embarking on a world tour the lead singer, Matt Berninger, invites his younger brother Tom along to work as a roadie. Tom, a would be movie maker with two low budget horror movies on his C.V. decides that this would be a great chance to make a documentary, if you will, "rockumentary" that largely fails to capture the sights, the sounds, the smells of a hard-working rock band on the road, and doesn’t get much of anything else either.
The big drawback is that Tom is a complete idiot. Usually these kind of fly-on-the-wall efforts have smart people behind the camera pointing it at fools for our entertainment. This flips that equation on its head, though Tom still manages to get his face into almost every frame. The theory behind Mistaken For Strangers is that it is funny – Tom is an inept roadie; Tom isa boozy metal fan expecting a bit of a rock’n’roll excess while the band are milder mannered than Coldplay. Or, it’s a touching study of the tensions between brothers when success warps their relationship. The reality is an indulgent collection of clips, stitched together without craft, skill or purpose. It’s only 75 minutes long but most of it feels like padding.
It does at least achieve the main purpose of this type of film, it makes the band look great. The patience and tolerance shown by the band members as he wastes their times with inane questions and stupid set-ups is almost saintly.
Directed by Tom Berninger.
Featuring Tom Berninger, Matt Berninger and The National. 75 mins
Recently Ken Loach suggested, “they should sack the critics and get ordinary punters in.” I guess it was out of deference to his five decades in the industry that nobody told him they had already done that. First they came for the print journalists but everybody thought they had it coming, so they did nothing. Then they came for the actual filmmakers and the only people left were some blokes online who thought it was all ****ing awesome.
The internet and cheap digital cameras have radically democratized the film making process and dug out some marvelous talent. It has also thrown up plenty of bozo film projects like this. The National are a US Indie rock band, who after ten years of struggle finally hit it big. (No, I haven’t heard of them either but they are famous enough to be on Letterman and get a photo op with Obama.) Embarking on a world tour the lead singer, Matt Berninger, invites his younger brother Tom along to work as a roadie. Tom, a would be movie maker with two low budget horror movies on his C.V. decides that this would be a great chance to make a documentary, if you will, "rockumentary" that largely fails to capture the sights, the sounds, the smells of a hard-working rock band on the road, and doesn’t get much of anything else either.
The big drawback is that Tom is a complete idiot. Usually these kind of fly-on-the-wall efforts have smart people behind the camera pointing it at fools for our entertainment. This flips that equation on its head, though Tom still manages to get his face into almost every frame. The theory behind Mistaken For Strangers is that it is funny – Tom is an inept roadie; Tom isa boozy metal fan expecting a bit of a rock’n’roll excess while the band are milder mannered than Coldplay. Or, it’s a touching study of the tensions between brothers when success warps their relationship. The reality is an indulgent collection of clips, stitched together without craft, skill or purpose. It’s only 75 minutes long but most of it feels like padding.
It does at least achieve the main purpose of this type of film, it makes the band look great. The patience and tolerance shown by the band members as he wastes their times with inane questions and stupid set-ups is almost saintly.
