(2024, USA, 128')
“It is time to ask questions about how stories about musicians are told and sold and for us as the audience to demand more innovation in our biographical portraits.” This statement from Alex Ross Perry suggests that we are about to see a music documentary that breaks away from the classic genre conventions. Just as unconventional were Pavement, the iconic 90s indie band that delivered five albums reflecting an entire generation, injecting new life into the American rock scene. The film follows the band as they prepare for their 2022 reunion tour, but it also explores other aspects of their musical legacy, such as the musical film based on their songs and the museum dedicated to their history.
Alex Ross Perry is an American director, screenwriter, actor, and film producer, born in Pennsylvania in 1984. In 2009, he directed his first feature film, Impolex, a comedy inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow. His second film, The Color Wheel, is a dark comedy that draws on the works of Philip Roth. With Listen Up Philip (2014), he won the Special Jury Prize at Locarno, while Queen of Earth (2015) was presented at the Berlinale. In 2017, Perry participated in Sundance with Golden Exits and directed the music video for Aly & AJ’s single Take Me.
It seems that musician biopics, the lowest form of high fiction, are destined to never go out of style. Yet I, against all common sense, love all these films, which are rarely very good and rarely can be called cinema. I love to hate these phony, stereotypical films. I watch any archival documentary that invites me to bask in the aesthetics of a bygone era that I sorely miss.
Alex Ross Perry
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