By Erin Free
Worth: $17.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree
Intro:
...a finely judged and incisive portrait...
Busted knees, post-show ice-baths, three-hour therapeutic massages, imperilled tours thanks to seemingly inconsequential “falls”…in the compelling new documentary Blur: To The End, the one-time hipper-than-thou British popsters are refreshingly and often hilariously honest about the fact that they’re not kids anymore. That said, this is no old man’s waddle – Blur still perform with gusto, passion and age-defying energy – but it’s just part of the fabric of the touring life of a band that broke out way back in the 1990s.
This mix of fly-on-the-wall observation and on-the-fly talking head interviews from music stalwart Toby L (who has made docos and tour films for Foals, Rihanna and one-time Blur mortal enemy Liam Gallagher) finds Blur together again after a ten-year lay-off to record a new album and stage their biggest ever show at Wembley Stadium. Years of alcoholism, rifts, walk-outs and/or firings, and candid memoirs appear to be pretty much water under the bridge as the boys from Blur hug and hunker down in the studio to make new music. Thankfully for the viewer (and as Blur fans will already know), Blur members Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree are all extremely eloquent, funny, disarming and enjoyably self-deprecating, and they make for great company throughout Blur: To The End. Their responses to getting back in front of live audiences are entertainingly varied, while the physical exertion that touring brings to bear on these now middle-aged (!!!) rockers is quietly disturbing. “I’m not a coal miner,” says the charmingly erudite Alex James, “but it is exhausting.”
There’s also a bittersweet quality to Blur: To The End as there seems no sense of permanence to this Blur reunion. Damon Albarn’s desperate need to constantly create is now far more disparate and spread across multiple projects, while all the other members also have major side hustles of their own, meaning that Blur is a now far less obvious proposition for them all. This is a finely judged and incisive portrait of where the band is at right now, while Toby L’s companion concert film Blur: Live At Wembley Stadium is a beautifully captured document of the band’s swaggering performance at the legendary London venue featuring a guest spot from Phil Daniels and a mind-bogglingly moving rendition of their classic anthem “Tender”, amongst many others.
Blur: To The End and Blur: Live At Wembley Stadium are both screening at The British Film Festival. Click here for all touring, venue and ticketing details.
