‘Pure Fucking Mayhem’ - DVD
If you’re going to do a documentary on Mayhem, you have to ask yourself some important questions. The first, and simplest, would be: will the whole band actually take part? Second: aside from the period 91-93, what is actually compelling enough about this band’s story to work well on film?
A negative to the first question would leave any biopic half empty and feeling unfinished. With the second, yeah, you could use concert footage, but that kind of falls down when dealing with the most frustratingly inconsistent live band in their genre. The minds behind this dvd will have addressed both of these questions - so why they ploughed on regardless is a mystery.
Everything Mayhem have released since 93 has been worth documenting. The ferocity of ‘Wolf’s Lair Abyss’, the convoluted mess that was its follow up, the ultra aggressive and almost fogotten ‘Chimera’ and of course the brilliant, uncompromising and twisted genius of ‘Ordo Ad Chao’.
But who cares about the albums? That’s not what will make a decent Mayhem DVD, and there’s no getting away from it. We want blood, intrugue, evil and the story of those heady days in all its chilling detail from the people responsible for it. Exactly what we already got in ‘Lords Of Chaos’, in other words.
By making itself an overview of Mayhem’s career then, this documentary concedes defeat from the beginning. The reason is that only a fifth of it is interesting in visual terms, as this tedious film predictably shows.
More effort could yet have rescued things. People, voices, insight and opinion for example. There is simply no sense in doing a Mayhem documentary without Hellhammer. Maniac as well is nowhere to be found. Blasphemer, though having quit as this was filmed, would have hardly been difficult to track down. What we have though is essentially an extended interview with Necrobutcher, cut with Atilla (who by his own admission was in Hungary when the shit really hit the fan) and a few other side players. Neither is one other prominent member of the Norse scene included.
The one impressive contribution that does make this film different is from former drummer Kjetil Manheim. Fantastically, he appears to have grown up and taken the whole thing with a pinch of salt, and provides the only memorable quotes of the film. The remainder is composed of exruciatingly poor third generation live footage, presumably taken from Youtube, set most uselessly of all to no actual Mayhem music. Well there is, but it’s covers on piano - the same problem that faced Nick Broomfield’s excellent ‘Kurt & Courtney’ biopic where the rights to Nirvana’s music were witheld. One may guess that the same thing happened here. Why else would the band’s own music not even be there?
The whole thing is appallingly amateur. The cameraman cannot keep his finger off the zoom, and it is intensely irritating to have the viewfinder correct itself in almost every shot. The chapter by chapter analysis flags awfully to the end, with the post DMDS albums dissected in the most cursory fashion, and no conclusion reached in any terms greater than that the band are Still Together and at their Best Ever. There’s no insight, no judgement, no nothing. The narrator sounds like she’s reading everything on Rohypnol, and the effects are so 70’s Hammer Horror that it’s not even funny.
Mayhem’s story is compelling. The personalities involved are intriguing, unhinged, unhappy and live on a permanent high wire even now. That this couldn’t have been more fully captured and analysed for posterity is a failure. Even calling this a documentary elevates it considerably above its station: it’s a couple of interviews on a handycam, dodgy and incomprehensible live footage and a shit voiceover. That’s it. I absolutely promise you that is the sum total of this rubbish enterprise.
One explanation was that it was rushed. You’d think if getting a better cast list involved waiting, then wait you would. The other is that the (otherwise talented) journalists involved just werent aware of what makes good and bad video. All I know is that reading ‘Lords Of Chaos’ still gives me the shivers, and even now paints a graphic, frightening and scary picture of that period in time and those wraith-like individuals. If this film succeeds in anything it’s in destroying that mystique utterly. The characters in Mayhem still have much to say - believe me - but none of it is even broached on these cameras.
1.2 / 5 - Ciaran Tracey ::: 02/11/08