We’ve been big supporters of the film, “Anvil! The Story of Anvil,” for basic reasons ever since we saw it last June during Sundance At BAM in Brooklyn. Not because it’s a rock documentary (at the end of the day who cares), and not because we’re particularly strong fans of the ’80s metal band’s music (though afterwards, it’s hard not to love them), it’s just simply a fantastically made film with a ton of humor, soul and humanity, period.
Here’s a version of the “review” we ran last summer (and here’s an even earlier review from HotDocs in May 2008).
“I can’t envision myself being a millionaire,” Anvil frontman/guitarist Steve Ludlow, a k a Lips, told the New York Times in May 2008. “but I can envision myself going to a gig every night and making enough money to make ends meet. I want to be the biggest bar band in the world and work endlessly.”
That’s a pretty great summary of the underdog life of the Canadian metal band Anvil and their uphill slog of a story as told in the Sacha Gervasi directed documentary, “Anvil! The Story of Anvil” (cheekily titled on purpose). We saw the keenly self-aware yet condescension-free documentary at BAM’s Sundance Institute in Brooklyn and while we didn’t want to do a full-blown review quite yet, we did want to note just how amazing it was.
The influential yet overlooked and underachieving rockers were once one of the key bands in the early ’80s metal scene and early pioneers of the lightning fast sound that became known as thrash metal, but due to a confluence of circumstances – incompetent managers, inept record labels for just two examples – the band were never able to capitalize on their sound the same way bands like Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer did (representatives from all those bands, plus Motorhead’s Lemmy and Guns N’ Roses’ Slash all adamantly sing the bands praises in the doc; Ozzy Osbourne has subsequently become a big champion of the film as well).
Alternatively, hilarious, pathetic and moving, ‘Anvil’ goes from a doofusy, real-life “This Is Spinal Tap” set-up (you think they’re morons who should’ve given up the ghost a long time ago) to an incredibly poignant and very human story of friendship, brotherhood, cockroach-like tenacity and resilience in the face of the harshest of obstacles (you want them to succeed in every way imaginable). No joke, the inspiring tale provoked an emotional standing ovation after the screening where Gervasi (who wrote the Spielberg film, “The Terminal”) and the Anvil hosers were onhand for a Q&A (more on that in another post). The guileless rockers (now in their 50s!) also rocked out for an amazing 45 minute concert afterwards (which totally ruled). You might not (and probably don’t) know anything about this band nor care one iota about heavy metal, but that won’t delude your enjoyment of this film in the least. ‘The Story Of Anvil’ is a remarkably gratifying and universal tale and ended up on our favorite movies that we saw in 2008 list ; it was that fucking good. We succinctly described it as an “uplifting, but never corny documentary about the under-appreciated and underachieving Canadian heavy metal icons…a story of these lovable buffoons will make you pump devils horns in the sky, cringe with embarrassment, laugh and weep in celebration.”
David Noland (who we spoke to last year) composed the moving score and noted texturalist David Torn wrote a few Mogwai-like pieces (he also wrote the score to “The Wackness” which came out last summer among many other great scores like the recent “Lars And The Real Girl” one) and apart from featuring a shit-ton of Anvil songs, the film also features tracks from Explosions In The Sky, Air and Alice Cooper to name a few (but yes, it’s all about Anvil at the end of the day). So yeah, highly, highly recommended. [A]
“Anvil The Story Of Anvil” comes out in limited release (NY, L.A.) starting this Friday, April 10. The band seem to be breaking out of their cult ghetto as they have been asked to record songs for the massively popular videogame, RockBand and the film has already done outrageously well in the U.K. where it was released in February. Watch the trailer if you haven’t already and go out of your way to see this film when it eventually expands into your town.
