The Reflektor Tapes review
The Reflektor Tapes review
If there’s one thing I looked forward to from Arcade Fire’s The Reflektor Tapes, it was the anticipation of a unique perspective on their creativity and approach to their art. In his directorial feature, Pulse Films’ Kahlil Joseph manages to strikingly combine a celebration of their music that presents brief peeks inside their process and keep enough distance to give us a distinctive insight that’s quite rare in both modern music and an over-zealous celebrity culture.
The Reflektor Tapes review continues below :: Watch the trailer for The Reflektor Tapes here
The film follows the band at shows between 2012 and 2014, from Haiti to Hollywood, via Jamaica, London and Montreal. It mixes up proceedings by occasionally delving in behind-the-scenes both in the studio and on the road but it’s by no means your typical music documentary. After a good 10-minute or so introduction to their music, by way of cut scenes of songs and high energy stage shows, we hear our first snippet of Win Butler talking about the ethos of the band which, if you’re anything like me, instantly wins me over as he explains…
“One of the deep roots of Arcade Fire‘s aesthetic is trying to ignore the world and make art just with the people in the room around you.”
For me Arcade Fire have always had a secretive element to the people behind the music and although some times it may encourage me to investigate further, with this band I’ve been content preserving that mystery. Interestingly, and almost contradictory, I’ve believed them to be a hugely collaborative collection of musicians and The Reflektor Tapes abundantly supports that theory. Their music may suggest occasionally moments of cacophony but they’re far from that as it continually evens out with distinctive visuals alongside intoxicating rhythms. With the clever use of editing and the merging of scenes, Kahlil Joseph celebrates that individuality here.
As the documentary cuts between studio and live performances of a large number of songs from Reflektor, their most recent album, it gives us a moment between the high energy of the stage and the more specific building of the songs. Behind-the-scenes, we only hear from the lead two artists Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, and I think the film would easily gain by more interview snippets with them. Win talks of themes of albums and song writing, while Régine speaks of her feelings when she was younger of feeling ‘invisible’ because she was slightly different to those around her. She also mentions that she occasionally has felt like she is ‘floating in two worlds’ but I’d suggest that Arcade Fire – as a whole – has given both of them an incredible focus to share those individual ideas as a whole package.
Radiohead’s ‘Meeting People is Easy’ had a similar setup, whereas your classic talking head interviews are non-existent, and for certain bands like Arcade Fire, it fits their identity. Whether it introduces the band to a new audience, I can’t answer, but the film undeniably expands their style by translating it onto the screen impressively. Much like their albums, The Reflektor Tapes engages you in collaboration, exploration, communal energy and just enough intriguing insight to truly connect. It surely can only enhance Arcade Fire’s incomparable place in the world.
The Reflektor Tapes review by Dan Bullock, August 2015
Arcade Fire presents The Reflektor Tapes opens in the USA on September 23rd and UK on September 24th. It also premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival.
