Hey kids, you know what is really Metal? Being nice to each other.
It is February, the room is dim and as I look around it
starts filling up with creatures shrouded in black with hair longer than mine has
ever been; cries of ‘hail Satan’ fill
the air........
.......The theatre was a full house of metalheads, eager to watch the Sydney theatrical release of semi-realistic biopic Lords Of Chaos (directed
by Jonas Ackerlund). A grisly drama based on crime incidents in early
90s Norway involving the members of black metal band Mayhem.
The film paints an entertaining and relatively accurate portrait how a music scene made up exclusively of young, middle-class men can
quickly become a stew of toxic masculinity and ngatekeeping
Lords Of Chaos is brutal- the violence is raw and
unforgiving, including a murder and a graphic suicide. It was confronting
enough for me to honestly consider covering my eyes. These scenes are necessary
and effective, they communicate to the audience the harsh reality of violence. Films can quickly desensitize us to violence and
gloss over it, especially with suicide. Its depictions are usually quite passive or
happen quickly but the reality of suicide is that it hurts, it’s terrifying, it’s
difficult to do and often a slow way to go.
I think films that show these are actually really important.
While there is blood and gore, I would say the film’s use of it is actually the opposite
of shock value. Will this movie put people off? Yes, but maybe that is the
point.
 |
| Party time! excellent! |
And now for the best part of the film, aesthetically
speaking: the church burnings. On the big screen, they were utterly hypnotising. great from a cinematography standpoint and just in general were BADASS MOTHERFUCKING COOL AS SHIT (that's a real film studies term, look it up.)
.
.
I’d recommend adding Lords Of Chaos to your true crime film
collection and I’m giving it an 8.5 out of 10
