Comments on: Guest Review: UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US (2009)

By: Charles 2

Charles 2 — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:32:21 +0000

yes, charles, because a hipster/faker is a person who knows what they’re talking about? your argument is nonsensical and basically just a bullshit ad hominem attack against the reviewer. PUSSY.

By: bvntake09

bvntake09 — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:08:31 +0000

I forgot to mention that even if you feel that they idolized their subjects and polarized the whole story to a positive outlook well then that’s okay because it balances the beyond negative view of the genre/culture the general community has.

By: bvntake09

bvntake09 — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:52:52 +0000

There’s a few points I have in reply to your post. First and foremost let me state that I am not a metal-head, or anything remotely like it. I’ve watched the movie from an unbiased, impartial point of view (as far as my subjective humanity allows me anyway). Understandably you’ll have more expert-like opinions on this matter, which is the reason I’m simply talking about non-musical things in here. I do agree in the disappointment in the lack of black metal in the video, but I suppose that because of the feeling they’re trying to convey, black metal the WHOLE time wouldn’t have been too productive.
First of all, Lords of Chaos is a highly inflated extremist rendition of the happenings of the day, just a few miles away from the sensasionalist papers/magazines circulating around. The name alone says it “the rise of the satanic metal underground” with a burning church as its cover. Biased without even having to read it.
Second, although Varg is rather racist and was, at some point, a Nazi, it is explained that this is one of his many phases of trying out an ideology. Of course he’ll have a white supremacist mindset -are you not aware of how proud Europeans are? The thing is, just as it applies for the whole world, it’s okay to be proud when you are a minority, but it’s absolutely horrid to be proud when you’re the dominating race. I should also state that I’m a South American Latina, therefore I’m not just tootin my own horn here.
The whole point of not focusing on his racial beliefs is because that will automatically cloud everything else and throw it out the window. Once he’s been labeled a Nazi we’ll no longer take him seriously and simply disregard the whole piece of work as some other White Supremacist nonsense with Satanic themes and airs thrown in.
Varg’s ideology, boiled and simplified down to almost stupidity is: I want Norway back for the people it belongs to. Rings true to many other races around the world does it not?
Also, as far as Fenriz being all melancholic -fully agree. He is.
Varg being stupid -not so much. He’s a very bright guy -but as most, he walks on that fine thread of intelligence and insanity. Also, when one is so profoundly passionate about an ideology, one may forget that the reality in one’s mind is not something the whole entire world
will follow or experience. He was dumb to go to the media and tell what happened, and trusted that this guy would take a story and tell it -as a journalist and not run off and tell the cops and twist it into a bigger thing -as a yellow journalist with a very small air of self-righteousness and some amount of conscience.
The tangent with the artist guy IS disorienting, but some can understand that it symbolized yet another reconstruction of the “face of black metal”, specifically by people who don’t entirely understand it (the guy didn’t even know that the album he was lusting over wasn’t a ‘new’ album). You can say this movie is another one of those too, I suppose.
I agree that they may have been unable to make this idea clear, but that’s a situational matter. Some people got it, some didn’t. The end.
Now, I understand the disappointment in lack of musical content both as a soundtrack and as actual video material. However, I feel that this film isn’t aimed to black-metal fans alone. It’s aimed to a general audience waiting to hear a story. Insertion of musical theories or trends would’ve been good, however too much of it would’ve caused some of the audience members to be turned off by it. You can’t please the whole world.
Also, please remember that this film wasn’t made by metalheads. Perhaps if it had been, you would’ve had a more flattering review -but they would’ve had less viewers.
The film is bound to be somewhat biased, of course… but I feel it would’ve been worse had it been made by people emotionally tangled to the subject matter. i.e., you.
Personally, I feel that this film did a good job at doing what it aimed to do -tell a story. There’s always two (or more) sides to a story -that’s the beauty (and ugliness) of humanity. However, I think it did a great job at opening up this subject matter for people who aren’t corpse-makeup wearing hardcore BM fans. Whether that’s good or bad -that’s also subjective.
Thanks.

By: McBeardo’s Midnight Movies » 15 Movies That Deserve Massive Cult Followings

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:37:15 +0000

[...] All that’s missing is a soundtrack by Burzum. [...]

By: Charles

Charles — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:15:24 +0000

This review seems to me like it’s written by either a hipster or a faker. The review is all like, ‘They got this all like wrong and then they got this right and then like anyone who does like a minute of research could know this but they don’t like know it.’

By: K

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:59:21 +0000

“One thing they did wrong was chop away any and all reference to Varg being a White-Power National Socialist.”

Fail. Vikernes is not a “National-Socialist.” Do your homework.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:55:22 +0000

Not sure what you’re talking about on the soundtrack issue. If you stayed through the credits, there was actually a very long list of black metal songs. Maybe you didn’t recognize the Ulver and ambient Burzum tracks, but there were also several Darkthrone and Mayhem songs, and also Gorgoroth and Enslaved and Thorns and more that I can’t remember. Also SUNNO ))), but that’s not black metal. I thought the soundtrack was very effective. It worked for the movie. It obviously wouldn’t for something like Headbanger’s Journey, but these movies have very little in common. I prefer this.

By: Bryan White

Bryan White — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:37:59 +0000

It has to be really hard to do a document about that period of Norwegian black metal because of how long it has had to mythologize itself.

By: Bob Goblin

Bob Goblin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:19:32 +0000

Ditto-

I was hoping a soundtrack would have at least…existed! From the opening scene I was thinking…oh no. Black Metal Satanica was more entertaining, maybe not as true or “thought provoking” but a sure of a hell lot more entertaining!

By: Bobby Weird

Bobby Weird — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:24:59 +0000

I understand the presence of Boards of Canada to some extent. It does evoke the pristine coldness of Norway and the self-imposed alienation described by Fenris at the beginning of the movie. I actually think something more ambient chillout would have been appropriate, since I always think of BM as the shadow of super-clean electronic music, which you know those guys all love. Ulver basically became ambient, after all. But as time went by and I never heard what I think of as the most representative of all Black Metal riffs, “I Am the Black Wizards” by Emperor, I started to get agitated. They let Fenris describe the BM riff perfectly, but never let us hear it. Still, it was good overall. If they let me redo the soundtrack, I could fix it. If I didn’t already know what BM was before going into the theater, I wouldn’t have known coming out.