• News
• Words
• Media
• Links
• Forum
• Contact

I moved into San Francisco less than a week before this show seeking my fame and fortune in the big city. Well maybe not fame and fortune, but definitely a decent job and some fun times. Interviewing for my first grown up job had been a painful experience. Carefully tucking my white collared shirt into my ironed, khaki Dockers, I could not have been more uncomfortable. What had happened to my carefree school days, where the biggest question I faced each evening was "Coors or Budweiser?" not "as an employee, what would you call your biggest weakness?" I was walking down my new street in my new city pondering these questions when I saw it: a flyer for a screening of the Fugazi movie Instrument at a local theater. I knew that I couldn’t miss this show. I needed it to put things back into perspective.

I had seen Fugazi live once a couple of years back at the Ventura Concert Theater. Once the show began, the noise was unrelenting. Screeching guitars, driving baselines, machine gun drums, and the duel vocals of Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto blared to the crowd with integrity and purpose. The show was so mind-blowing in person that I was interested in how well a film/video could capture the live presence of the band. Even the band’s amazing albums couldn't come close to touching the power of the band live.

The film/video actually did manage to capture the Fugazi live experience… for about 5 minutes. The intro section of Instrument is visually and sonically amazing. As a moody instrumental track trucks along in the background, grainy images of MacKaye, Picciotto, Joe Lally (bass), and Brendan Canty (drums) appear and disappear on the screen, out of sync with soundtrack, but edited to maximize the emotion and power of the band. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie does not live up to the promise of these first five minutes, but it is still a valiant effort to portray such a complex band.

Filmmaker Jem Cohen, who made the movie in conjunction with Fugazi, does a great job capturing the band perform live. In one section of the movie, Cohen films Fugazi play a song in a single take from just one angle without any cuts. This shot, along with the intro segment, comes the closest to capturing the intensity and emotion of a Fugazi performance. The band does not need MTV-style quick cuts to fool the audience into thinking they are witnessing something of substance. With Fugazi, what you see is what you get.

Another highlight of the film/video is the lifestyle clips that are presented. Fugazi takes their music and politics so seriously that it’s refreshing to actually see the band goof around between shows. I also liked how Cohen included shots of the diverse crowds waiting in line for various Fugazi shows. They show how a band with such integrity appeals to people from all backgrounds.

Unfortunately, the movie can not keep up the high standards it sets in the first five minutes. While the collage style of the movie is refreshing at first, eventually the movie seems to need some sort of structure to keep us interested. Also, the 115 minutes of running time could have been shortened to around 75-90 minutes.

Despite these weaknesses, I definitely recommend this movie to anyone who is a fan of Fugazi or to anyone who loves powerful, important music. Fugazi is a breath of fresh air in the era of bubble-gum target-market pop.