'So… here's “Junun” – the movie we made of our time in India. Plug it into your speakers and play it loud – your neighbors need to hear it!!'
So that quote is an email I got from 'Paul' last night. Everyone did who had signed up to MUBI. When he said “play it loud” he knew the premiere would be at midnight midweek around the world. MUBI has over 7 million members and offices in San Francisco, London, Munich and Istanbul which adds up to a lot of neighbours being affected. Whether those neighbours think it’s a racket or not doesn’t matter. What this film offers is unique music.
“Junun” (Madness of Love) was filmed in Spring 2015 at the Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, India. It’s a 50 minute documentary film on the album recording of a collaboration of three parties: Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead, Shye Ben Tzur an Israeli composer and The Rajasthan Express. All caught and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Now I’m a big fan of PTA – I only didn’t love Inherent Vice – but I wasn’t sure what to expect from a documentary by him even up to 23.59 last night. What I saw was a filmmaker having real fun making a film. He’s not interested in interacting with the musicians and learning of their method. He lets them do their thing and he focuses on his passion; capturing life in front of him on lens. This separation effectively buffers against pretension through sucking up to each other. Instead of the camera looking up to the musicians it is an inquisitive character walking around and sitting alongside them as a guest. It listens and reacts. When the music is passionate and upbeat, it scans faces, honing in on interesting ones and following gestures to make sense of the song. When the music slows, the camera’s movements calm like a respectful onlooker. The focus of the camera is the music occasionally distracted by India either outside of the window or when attached to a drone.
There is very limited dialogue and no analysis of the music. Johnny Greenwood is virtually a silent presence in the film in terms of dialogue. I think that his score for There Will Be Blood is one of the most memorable since the turn of the century and so I wanted to know more about his method but I got none of that. The camera remained a voyeur and we just see his black hair moping over his face as he plays guitar and swipes at his Mac. I guess I'll have to wait.
Shye Ben Tzur seems the spiritual centre and glue of this triumvirate between the modern and the traditional; playing guitar but wearing traditional dress. And The Rajasthan Express is a talented group of Indian musicians contributing with many different musical accoutrements; mostly traditional Indian but also trumpets and tubas. It makes for a strange combination but they all seem to be in tune with each other.
At one point one producer rhetorically comments of members of The Rajasthan Express: “So they are singing a language that they don’t understand?” This of course isn’t puzzling to the musicians at all. Music is meant to be emotional and able to transcend backgrounds and cultures if it so desires. This film is lean through it's exclusive focus on celebrating the joy that music can bring. It is not distracted by other issues like the characters involved or the location. The three parties involved and India, all seen at glances, remain mysteries in their own ways. What I go away knowing is that their collective collaboration over those three weeks was intriguingly good.
I’ll finish by graciously quoting MUBI –“it’s an intimate, eclectic, multi-cultural, multi-musical journey. Prepare to be uplifted.”
Waste of time? No 5/5 - short, sweet and I'll be looking out for the album.
“Junun” (Madness of Love) was filmed in Spring 2015 at the Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, India. It’s a 50 minute documentary film on the album recording of a collaboration of three parties: Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead, Shye Ben Tzur an Israeli composer and The Rajasthan Express. All caught and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Now I’m a big fan of PTA – I only didn’t love Inherent Vice – but I wasn’t sure what to expect from a documentary by him even up to 23.59 last night. What I saw was a filmmaker having real fun making a film. He’s not interested in interacting with the musicians and learning of their method. He lets them do their thing and he focuses on his passion; capturing life in front of him on lens. This separation effectively buffers against pretension through sucking up to each other. Instead of the camera looking up to the musicians it is an inquisitive character walking around and sitting alongside them as a guest. It listens and reacts. When the music is passionate and upbeat, it scans faces, honing in on interesting ones and following gestures to make sense of the song. When the music slows, the camera’s movements calm like a respectful onlooker. The focus of the camera is the music occasionally distracted by India either outside of the window or when attached to a drone.
There is very limited dialogue and no analysis of the music. Johnny Greenwood is virtually a silent presence in the film in terms of dialogue. I think that his score for There Will Be Blood is one of the most memorable since the turn of the century and so I wanted to know more about his method but I got none of that. The camera remained a voyeur and we just see his black hair moping over his face as he plays guitar and swipes at his Mac. I guess I'll have to wait.
Shye Ben Tzur seems the spiritual centre and glue of this triumvirate between the modern and the traditional; playing guitar but wearing traditional dress. And The Rajasthan Express is a talented group of Indian musicians contributing with many different musical accoutrements; mostly traditional Indian but also trumpets and tubas. It makes for a strange combination but they all seem to be in tune with each other.
At one point one producer rhetorically comments of members of The Rajasthan Express: “So they are singing a language that they don’t understand?” This of course isn’t puzzling to the musicians at all. Music is meant to be emotional and able to transcend backgrounds and cultures if it so desires. This film is lean through it's exclusive focus on celebrating the joy that music can bring. It is not distracted by other issues like the characters involved or the location. The three parties involved and India, all seen at glances, remain mysteries in their own ways. What I go away knowing is that their collective collaboration over those three weeks was intriguingly good.
I’ll finish by graciously quoting MUBI –“it’s an intimate, eclectic, multi-cultural, multi-musical journey. Prepare to be uplifted.”
Waste of time? No 5/5 - short, sweet and I'll be looking out for the album.