TigerHeron

I'm giving this 5 stars to give it the benefit of the doubt. I only watched a little over half of it. I'm a psychotherapist and have worked with rape survivors. There isn't much here that rings true to me. A graduate student in Literature is usually a fairly smart person. Someone who is told by her best friend that her professor obviously wants to have sex with her does not go over to his house for a "meeting" when he tells her to when they were supposed to meet in his office. She reschedules. It's as if the main character was a little girl instead of an adult graduate student. Most women don't flirt with older men in positions of power over them whom they do not wish to have sex with. Most women over the age of 18 have had some type of rape prevention or at least watched cop shows and know you're not supposed to bathe after an assault but go straight to the ER or police. A lot of the supporting characters act bizarrely as well. Maybe people in La La Land would think this movie is realistic but I do not.

I saw this film at the Mill Valley Film Festival. It was a lot better than I thought it would be. I was worried it would be a long promotional video for Metallica, but it was a real documentary. The movie travels around the world, showcasing fans everywhere from Botswana to Iraq to Ukraine to South America. The stories they tell about how Metallica helped get them through personal struggles, tragedies and wars are riveting. I cried a lot. The film also manages to summarize the band's history by spanning the early days when they started out with one fan to the present.

Sociologically the film is interesting in that it shows what some people might term cult behavior. Occasionally a psychologist or someone similar pops up to add an explanatory note. I'm a big Metallica fan myself but I suppose there are different types of fans. As much as I love the band and their music, I would not spend six figures on their shows and merchandise nor am I likely to go to multiple shows in a row. It appears that for some of the fans, the bond they have with other fans is their social life.

The film portrays a very diverse fandom, and I am sure that was deliberate. If you spend time with Metallica fans in real life though you will learn that the majority are still white men. I think there's a different movie out there to be made about metal culture and its macho attitude. I feel like this movie was trying to be an antidote to that without addressing the issue directly. I guess that's great although it does leave out any responsibility the band might have for attitudes of the past. I guess I'm ok with letting the past be the past...

Although this movie is a special treat for Metallica fans I think anyone who likes documentaries would appreciate it.