Lords of Chaos movie

[Juggz]

The irony being, of course, that Kristian became Varg when he was, what, about 17 or 18? Faust committed murder when he was 18 too? The film starts when Euronymous and Necrobutcher are about 15 or 16?  It's a teen drama no matter how you spin it 

Unless you believe that there was no personality development in any of these characters across the years of events the film covers and that Varg appeared, fully formed as Varg of Burzum, famous youtuber, then it’s only logical that there is some emotional and personal growth portrayed on the screen. That means they have to start somewhere not as fully formed as legend tells us they were when the film reaches its climax.

[ochoill]

You heard it here first lads, if you like this movie you're not a real metal fan.

I was wondering why I stopped enjoying all my music after thinking it was alright.

There's any amount of stuff out there for you to look at/read and build up your own picture of those events. Interviews (print and verbal), documentaries, zines, etc etc.. You don't end up thinking "necro American Pie".

Jesus, it's a fucking joke of a flick altogether.

I'd like to see it done with a proper dark atmosphere and mood explored. The story is already written. The events are incredible. It just needs an understanding direction. Not a half a teen flick with crowbarred in love story and jock style house parties and "MY NAME IS VARG!"  dialogue. Sheesh 

Being very familiar with all the events before seeing this, I still enjoyed it.  It's one side of a view on it, and does go into each of the major events surrounding it.  Obviously you're upset that this wasn't close to the picture you had in your head of events.  If you remove the glorifying narrative of old zines, docs, interviews and pull back the veil of mystery that kept the events so interesting to us over the years, this is what you're left with; a bunch of teenagers trying to be as evil as they could to present an image of their music, but it all got way out of hand.  They were having house parties and trying to "out-metal" each other with stage names, why take it out when it goes to show the sort of thing they got up to?

Fair enough there's a very teen drama element to the whole thing but that's a writing tool for the film, it seems ludicrous to think that these people were just shitty kids in bands until it's presented that way, it's designed to go against the idea we have of it all, while at the same time making it an accessible film for people who know nothing about this whole thing.  I don't think it's a great film, but it's not bad.

A film exploring it in a darker atmosphere would be interesting but tough to do, without glorifying the events, outside of a documentary style and we already have Until The Light Takes Us for that (excellent film).  There's a wealth of resources online that anyone with more than a passing interest can explore to see what happened, and since this is basically a true crime flick there will be people who do it, and down the line if it sells and performs well you might get a documentary in the style you want.  But this was never designed to be that.

Edit:  Juggz said it much more succinctly above really.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Here's something I don't think I'd seen before and which YouTube just threw into my recommendeds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c2gBrvOVXE

Going to try watch the film this weekend, after showing herself Until The Light Takes Us first for context.

[Pedrito]

That video is very good Chris and goes back to my original point that, despite age, these lads were deadly serious about their art, and that for them, art, spirituality, life, expression all melded into one. It's too easy to say they were stupid young kids..of course there's a ridiculous pretentious look to it from outside, but I'm not convinced that they were in fact pretending. They seem like morose, serious people. And all the violence, suicides, murder etc etc backs all that up. Stupid kids get in a band, someone kills themselves and the band breaks up and everyone goes working in a bank. That's not what happened here..it all formed a part of the whole, the music being of maximum priority, married to a way of life and a way of seeing tje world that they forged together. It isn't all consistent, of course, some see things differently to others, but the guy from Darktbrone talking about the silence in which they would walk through yje woods, the ritual aspects, their view of their metal as a continuity of a tradition, a Norwegian, pre Christian tradition..it flies in the face of much of what the film.was saying.

Now I will get slaughtered for this, but a lot of their talk and language almost reflects the national romanticism that we saw in Ireland and in Irish poetry and writing at the start of the 1900's particularly by the Gaelic League. If you ever read the likes of Padraig Pearse, there is a lot of crossover in the way he would talk about Ireland, the romanticism, the tradition, the heroes, etc etc etc. So metal was the tool, the language used, but as opposed to the American big hair way of approaching metal, they used it as a way to honour their tradition, but also set themselves completely against Americanisation. So, again, the film has missed all of this. We fall into these easy explanations of things too easily. Of course there's some truth in it all, but it's scratch the surface stuff.

Gaelic League: even looking at the imagery they employ shows connections in theme. The choice of art style is simply a means to express other deeper ideas. I see similarities all over black metal..

https://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/index.php/articles/the-gaelic-league-and-the-1916-rising

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

but the guy from Darkthrone talking about the silence in which they would walk through the woods[...]it flies in the face of much of what the film was saying.

Yeah, that particularly jumped out at me too. Very strange behaviour, but of a definitely morose bent.

[Grim Reality]

Good couple of posts there from Pedrito and Chris/BSC.

Here's a curio I hadn't seen before sent on to me in recent days. Far more interesting than that travesty of a waste of time, piece of shit fraudulent joke of a fuckin film

https://youtu.be/6YIv6XqOlKY

[ochoill]

Here's something I don't think I'd seen before and which YouTube just threw into my recommendeds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c2gBrvOVXE

Going to try watch the film this weekend, after showing herself Until The Light Takes Us first for context.

Cheers for that, it oddly flows well together considering it is only outtakes.  Must rewatch the full documentary again, it's been a while.  Great watch.

Far more interesting than that travesty of a waste of time, piece of shit fraudulent joke of a fuckin film

Take this statement for a second, coupled with your own admission that you don't even watch films, and imagine someone who doesn't listen to metal tell you that's how they felt about an album you like.  A bit of less investment in these things would do you well.

[Thriatika]

It's been a good long while since I read the book. Was the two lads' alibi really that they were watching  'Die Hard 2' on video?  😂

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Watched it last night. Lads, it's fucking awful. Absolutely would have turned it off about 40 minutes in had it been about a group of people I had no interest in. Had the director put as much energy into making a good film, with a minimum of genuine atmosphere, as he did into doing everything he could to rile up Varg through his depiction of the character, then it could have been okay. I'm not saying Varg doesn't deserve a character assassination, but the way Jonas went about it absolutely killed his own film; plus the actor would be bad even for yank soap opera standards. Overall, that and the absolute inability to create, let alone sustain mood made it a poor quality TV movie. Generally I'm pretty picky about what I invest time in, so I can safely say this is the worst film/TV I've seen in a very long time.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I'll add one nuance to that critique; maybe yer man playing Varg isn't such a bad actor. Maybe he was actually directed to play the character that way.

[Grim Reality]

Here's something I don't think I'd seen before and which YouTube just threw into my recommendeds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c2gBrvOVXE

Going to try watch the film this weekend, after showing herself Until The Light Takes Us first for context.

Cheers for that, it oddly flows well together considering it is only outtakes.  Must rewatch the full documentary again, it's been a while.  Great watch.

Far more interesting than that travesty of a waste of time, piece of shit fraudulent joke of a fuckin film

Take this statement for a second, coupled with your own admission that you don't even watch films, and imagine someone who doesn't listen to metal tell you that's how they felt about an album you like.  A bit of less investment in these things would do you well.

I don't know where to start with you. Your replies to me on this topic are all over the place. Maybe not surprising for someone who thinks so obvious a turd of a film is "alright".

I'm gonna leave you and your notions there. Don't have the time or patience to tackle your numerous error strewn posts one by one.

[astfgyl]

Right so.

A film is released, loosely based on the formative years of a musical movement. A movement which was seemingly designed to push boundaries of taste and to be abhorrent to the mainstream.

The film portrays the events in such a fashion as to be abhorrent to the founders and followers of the aforementioned movement.

Aghast at this travesty, the followers flock to the Internet forums in their droves to declare their disgust.

The followers,.. those who once found solace in this music as their portal to rejection of the mainstream become a parody of the offended masses from which they once strived to isolate themselves.

"how dare you defile that idea which we hold sacred" they cry.

Having paid tribute to the style in the true spirit of the movement, and having unleashed a tide of irony on the target audience, the film sits back to enjoy watching the horror unfold.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

In the end, I didn't tell herself anything about the scene before watching the film, just so one of us could judge it without prejudice. She found the story compellingly shocking but the film fairly boring. And it is.

I'm not precious about the BM scene at all, it's just a very poor film about a captivating story it got for free. Making it a very, very poor film.

[Pedrito]

I'm not a huge black metal fan, and I get the story itself is interesting. However, it's far more interesting for those into BM or metal, than not. This jokey, taking the piss idea is childish. Like an internal joke that very few people will get. Again, it doesn't do enough for me in terms of the music and the power of the scene. It just reduces everything down to adolescent behaviour, which, again, is a blasé and typically modern way of looking at things. It just doesn't add up, and I wouldn't be offended or even give a shit either way.

[Eoin McLove]

Going to see this in the cinema on Friday.  No spoilers please