Vienna Calling is neither a full on documentary nor a feature film, it is a little bit of both. What could have been an interesting mix in theory does not work on all levels due to musicians not being actors, but nevertheless it is an interessing mix.
In my option the film suffers from a few things:
- as an avid follower of the austrian and viennese music scene for the last 25 years there are simply too little artists presented in the film for my liking. It looks like the producer (Gutlauniger) presents only his close friends, but that is not the case as he him self stated in the interview following the screening I attended. He said, there is no special close releation more than simply knowing each other for being artists in the same city and being loosly connected
- also while some of the artists featured on the poster have a lot screentime, others that have extremly little are featured on the poster the same way
- the project has started 5 years ago and therefore there are quite a few covid era scenes in it. I just can't stand anymore seeing people in stores with face masks or how inconsequetly the mask policies were handled in bars
On the bright side I see:
- beautiful images of nighttime vienna, full of places, venues and bars I went myself
- as a fan of "Der Nino aus Wien" and "Voodoo Jürgens" the film does a lot of fanservice for me as both artists are featured heavily and with wonderful intimate scenes and music
- while I'm not a real fan of Esrap the scenes with her & her brother are very interesting, funny & witty - some of the best in the movie
Smoking and drinking is featured heavyly through the whole film. There is close to no scene without it.
