Heavy mental
Revisionist rockers Metallica go deep in fascinating documentary
You don't have to be a Metallica or heavy metal fan to get lost in Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's captivating documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.
Sinofsky and Berlinger had their first Metallica moment in the '90s while shooting their disturbing documentary Paradise Lost (1996) about the grotesque child mutilation murders in West Memphis, Ark., which some tied to the suspected teen killers' taste for heavy metal. Metallica allowed the filmmakers to use their music for the documentary free of charge.
The filmmakers couldn't have picked up with Metallica at a more opportune time some five years later. Bass player Jason Newsted has just left the band, and Metallica is floundering for direction as it struggles to produce its first album in five years. Tensions between the remaining band members — drummer Lars Ulrich, vocalist James Hetfield and guitarist Kirk Hammett — are at an all-time high. All the money, the egos and the adulation have turned them into acolytes serving the monster of Metallica. Individual desires begin to get ground up in the forward momentum of the multimillion-dollar big business, which seems to have sapped much of the joy out of the creative process.
In a final effort to prevent a breakup, the group calls in $40,000-a-month psychotherapist Phil Towle. In a therapy-drenched culture, Phil's presence might not seem exceptional, but it's hard not to admire the band members for exposing their neuroses in a macho, heavy metal culture where, as Jason sniffs, therapy is seen as "really lame ... weak."
Phil's bland Midwestern paternalism and penchant for "Cosby Show" sweaters contrasts with the L.A. rock style of Metallica in just one of the film's many amusing juxtapositions.
Unlike any group therapy session yet committed to film, the surprisingly candid band members meet in the posh, well-appointed sanctuary of a Ritz-Carlton hotel room to hash out their problems. Despite their teenage surliness and copious tattoos, the band members have become so used to high living, they probably wouldn't recognize the absurdity of the world's angriest heavy metal band talking about hurt feelings while ensconced in such prissed-out surroundings. Other delicious visual absurdities abound in Some Kind of Monster, like James, furious over another ego-clash with Lars, gunning his hog not to some dive bar for a drink, but to his daughter's ballet practice.
As the therapy sessions progress, real people emerge from behind the king-sized egos of coddled rock gods. Lars struggles to please his critical father (whose Father Time beard and emaciated figure make him look like a Lord of the Rings extra). James is battling alcoholism and bonding issues left over from a neglected childhood. Easygoing Kirk tries to keep the peace and maintain his humility amid the whiny infighting between Lars and James.
Like any of us, the Metallica guys are still thumb-sucking their age-old demons, and they're unable to break from self-destructive habits. From the outside, their conflicts are as maddeningly stupid — and as familiar — as the jealousies and territorial pissings that go on at any family dinner table.
But the nature of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle gives them some common issues as well. James and Lars are fortysomethings trying to raise children and transition into a more peaceful existence that's at odds with the rabble rousing, drunkenness and promiscuity of the on-the-road lifestyle. Party animals growing older, the band members begin to question the machismo of the rock 'n' roll mythology and examine how, despite their individual desires, they could have allowed the monster of Metallica to threaten the band's existence.
What initially looks like an ordinary "Behind the Music" documentary turns into a meatier and consistently engrossing rebirth story. Only months into the film project, James heads off for a stint in rehab. His transformation from heavy metal monster to thoughtful family man is not unlike the one many ordinary men go through as they reject the spoils of perpetual boydom for a more thoughtful contemplation of their inner lives. When James returns from detox, he looks physically altered, as if he has molted his thick outer layer for a raw, pink, content one.
We grow with Metallica. We begin to take comfort in Phil's soothing daddyish presence instead of seething with resentment at the good doctor's wall-to-wall therapy-speak. For every instance of showing the real people inside machismo's leather chaps, Some Kind of Monster finds a certain amount of wry delight in the goofy, emasculating vocabulary of head shrinking.
Berlinger and Sinofsky have gained unbelievable access to their subjects and produced another fascinating, multilayered film. But Some Kind of Monster's flaws are also traceable to the filmmakers, who have a passive-aggressive film style that can maintain a pretense of objectivity even as they vilify or valorize. The filmmakers stack the deck for the repentant rocker side, making the debauched rock 'n' rollers seem like babes lost in a heavy metal forest. Their wholesome jet-ski antics and desperate pleas for family time gloss over the spoils of gargantuan paychecks and ego-stroking that comes with stardom.