Films like Blackberry, Pop Tarts: The Movie, and This is Spinal Tap are a few of the mockumentary/comedies mimicking something real or something most people take seriously  The latest in this vein is Pavements about a real grunge band from the 90s called Pavement, go figure.  This is a multilayered film that is part narrative feature and part mockumentary .The combination of these two styles of filmmaking is very entertaining to watch. You just have to not take this film that seriously. 

The premise behind this movie is this. It’s a documentary style film talking about this indie grunge band from the 90s called Pavement. They are considered a joke band. There are also two other things that the documentary does regarding the story. There is a biopic film being produced about Pavement starring some good upcoming actors, Fred Hechinger,  Joe Keery, Joseph Quinn, Nat Wolf, and Jason Schwartzman and there is an art show featuring the band. It’s a multilayered mockumentary, and it’s pretty funny. 

Director Alex Ross Perry created Pavements as an experimental musical biopic concert film. That’s a mouthful if you ask me. The concert aspects were interesting because they are mostly archival footage with scenes showing the band preparing to have a reunion.  I’m a huge fan of grunge rock, but this kind of jokey songs and performances wasn’t necessarily my thing. The biopic and other portions of the movie were more in my lane. Perry threw a lot at the wall to see what would stick, and a lot of it did. It’s hard to get a band like this to be interesting, but the director did.

The band members have all moved on from their careers in this grunge band until their fans wanted them to reunite.  That is what the honis was behind the idea to make a film. I don’t think this would have worked that well without the framing sequence of them trying to get back together. They even had stuff talking about members having a falling out with each other like normal rock bands have. Everything worked well together. It’s weird because such an odd film doesn’t sound like it would work on paper, but it does. I was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed what I watched.

A third added aspect to the film is a stage play that mixes the discography of this indie rock band and a scripted element. This was another funny part of the documentary that mixed in well with the other parts of the film. Similar to a lot of documentaries now they try not to have too much talking heads or archival footage, but add in a framing sequence or current whereabouts or event that gets the audience interested in the subject of the film they are watching.  Everything mixed well within the context of the documentary. 

It was hard for me to be totally in on the film because I didn’t know who these guys were. Once I started watching the film, though, I was all in on the concept of the film that Ross Perry was trying to do. As a fan of grunge rock, you had me intrigued from the very beginning, and then he added all the other stuff that made it all the more funny and entertaining.  The experimental aspects made complete sense and didn’t bother me at all. I applaud the director who takes big swings even if the swing is a miss. This swing was a double into the gap. I quite liked most of what I watched.

4 stars

Dan Skip Allen