Until The Light Takes Us (2009)

Since 20 years have gone, the gloomy and relatively silly story about Norwegian church arsons and homicides has become famous to almost everyone. As every another promising event it was represented by a number of journalists in documentaries, and each of them would like to reveal the conflict from “his own side”. At least two, maybe three luckies got their success, but all other attempts were just vain corpse fucking procedure which gathers only pleasure (in best case) rather than any useful consequences. So each next attempt ought to be received sceptically without any anticipation of breakthrough. As well as all previous experiences, “Until the Light Takes Us” (direct translation of Burzum's “Hvis Lyset Tar Oss” from Norwegian to English) did not promise anything exciting or even peculiar.

However, things went aside right with opening titles, because instead boring and unoriginal “ominous” intro from the archives of Mayhem or Burzum the movie is opened by Múm's song “The Ballad Of The Broken Birdie Records”, which did not try to create any lucid “black metal” or “antisocial” mood, but desperately, faintly trembled in slowly chilling air; this unexpectable start turns all the perception from legs to head, and even this already could be counted as sort of win. Nevertheless, the start is good but not enough; so the film continues.

Second interesting feature, besides music tricks with atmosphere and perception, is the choice of video materials selected to mount this movie. Instead of concentration on church burnings and murder convictions, director preferred to use relatively new records, on which all the known personalities are adult and self-established people, and some of this people even would like to avoid all these events and imagine they didn't happen at all. This is truly brand new look at the problem: without sacred terror about satanism and simultaneous unhealthy obsession with it that was so inherent to press at those days, or without any abstruse conclusions, parallels and motherfucking boring reasoning about modern art and post-modern paradigm; this look is just a look back. Just a look back, from the distance of almost twenty years, and this look is really soaked more by bitterness rather than any pride or pleasure. And nonetheless you could see how this look can differ.

There are many personalities involved into those dark days that are mentioned here. Somebody of them appears just for couple of seconds (like Garm saying two or three short but really necessary phrases about christianity and its “place” in Norwegian culture), somebody even has its face covered (like Bard “Faust” Eithunn); somebody has notably more frames and even minutes (replete, swollen faces of Abbath and Demonaz demonstratively pretending to be rock stars) but this does not work good on them; and a number of people that, as director thought, is the pivot of the movie, people whose looks back can form the full spectrum of all he wanted to exhibit.

For evident reasons Gylve (Fenriz, Darkthrone) was chosen as the main figure of “narration”. It is just enough to look in his jaded eyes with bags under them, look at his amusing yet sad face, listen how he is trying to explain things faltering on each third word, and you exactly understand why he is the center of this scene. Facts that Darkthrone always was aside of any activities like arsons or murders do make no sense in light of fact how deep Gylve appears within frame. In each shot, whether he walks on evening streets of Oslo, guides on legendary places (tape recorder and the story of 50 kronas), just talks, and especially watches Varg's prison interview and comments his speech choking with words and cigarette smoke; in each shot Gylve looks like a tragic hero. In his words all the things happened then become puerile, incongruous and merely stupid, become ones that they really are – deeds and views of badly socialized yet well-to-do teenagers, and aftermath of such deeds and views. The story of Red Army Fraction could be considered as repeated, although with definitely less victims and destruction. And listening to Gylve makes your comprehension about one thing: although yes, they do receive the glory but this is a kind of glory I would hardly wish to anyone.

I would not like to comment any Varg's words or deeds; this question is definitely deeply discussed everywhere, and thorough nerdy correspondents don't get tired to count how many times he changed his mind, attitude or his description of events happened (especially of night Euronymous was murdered); this is boring, this carries no didactics at all, and, that is really more significant, this is a kind of past. Varg has been liberated from a prison and now he is trying to grab back the grey splinters of his completely shattered life (vainly, as I could say); and, as well as Gylve, he does understand that the trace of glory he obtained during it could be hardly left some day.

Frost is the third kind of “survived”, and he is chosen to reveal how you could let this glory work on you. Frost, with his static forever young face and punkish image, appears to be one who does not change his mind and attitude at all and continues to carry the Black Art and Devil's Word through the years and kilometers, but this is the most important illusion and the most important conclusion in “Until the Light Takes Us”. With an artist whose helpful image was brilliantly inserted in the narration for this purpose, Frost's activity on example of his show presented turns to us by its other side – it is a grave dance, merely desperate grave dance, slow and hopeless as Sunn O))) soundtrack accompanying it, and this dance is being performed on the grave of black metal it was and should be, trampling ramshackle remains of it deeper down in mellow graveyard soil.

And this is the main line of this movie, if we sum up all the shades sounded. Black metal is dead. Black metal was dead as Tutankhamen years ago, and the worst (or best) thing is to afraid that it was stillborn. I cannot even imagine a better conclusion from events happened then, in 1990s. That's why modern black metal activity claiming to be TRUE or some another histrionic epithet could gather only a pale smile from my face. We're all dead, Jimmy. We're all dead.

As A Result: the best motion picture about definitely not best things.

Watch It?: fuck yes.