Until The Light Takes Us

I wanted more from "Until the Light Takes Us". I have only seen two shorter "documentaries" about Norweigan black metal (Metal: A Headbangers Journey and an interview done with Vice Mag) and all of them have been fairly vague. I think it is always going to be hard to get an accurate doc out there about the scene/movement seeing as how most of the original founders are all not so willing to speak clearly about it. Its not that they dont want to talk exactly because there is a TON of talking but its hard to piece together what they are trying to say.

"Until the light takes us" tries to offer some back story and even explanations about the black metal scene in Norway. In the late 80's the bands started popping up, from what we get in the film it was partially about being dark and sounding as shitty and "lo-fi" as possible (recording albums through tiny amps, headset mics, etc). They wanted to be different and to get away from this com-modified metal that was around them. Later on we start to get to the infamous church burnings of the 90s. Members of bands began burning down ancient churches all over Norway, according to the media they were satanist. According to them they were not satanist, they wanted to make a point that they werent going to respect Christianity since Christianity hadnt respected Norway and their ancestry (since christianity was basically forced upon every country in the world). They called it a movement, a movement to reclaim their ancestry in a way. After though, the media got a hold of the scene and exploited it to be seen as this satanic metal movement which got kids and copy-cats across the country starting bands and burning down churches in the name of satan.

Despite an hour and a half I still didnt learn much more about black metal than I already knew. I do agree that some of these guys are creepy and most likely messed up, some are putting on an act (which is addressed in the film) but one thing I did get was that it doesnt seem like being an arsonist, murderer or satanist is really what they are all about. Even the directors talk about this in an interview, yet they still refer to them as murderers when in fact there was only ONE murder during this whole thing. One thing I do agree with the directors on is that this movement was about the "politics of identity and authorship and what happens if you are a person that creates things, what happens when youve put it out there and how things are interpreted and reinterpreted and how the context changes the original meaning and how the original meaning, it retroactively changes the reality of what occurred".

There was a lot going on in this documentary and I think that the directors needed to hone in a bit. Listening to them speak about it, you can understand what they were getting at but theyre film didnt really reflect it as well as it should or could have.