A Mighty Wind (2003)
Note: This review is based on a
SXSW 2003 screening of a rough cut (on video) of the
film. The finished film may be different from this
version I saw.
I haven't seen "Waiting for Guffman"
or "Best in Show," Christopher Guest's first two mocumentaries,
but I bet they're pretty similar to "A Mighty Wind."
In fact, "A Mighty Wind" is presumably like an amalgam
of "Show" and "Spinal Tap" (in which Guest starred)
as it send up Folk music rather than rock and culminates
in a big televised show.
I realized during the screening
of this film that the reason I hate mockumentaries
is that they "mock" something. And while there are
a few things that deserve mocking (like rock stars,
as in Spinal Tap), most of these films think it is
funny to hold people, their lives and their deepest
desires up to ridicule. Folk music is not a viable
topic for a mockumentary. Folk music is generally
passionate, heartfelt and genuine. Why should we make
fun of something with those qualities?
And we've pretty much seen what
Guest does here before. Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael
McKean play The Folksmen in "A Mighty Wind" but they
might as well call themselves the Folk Spinal Tap.
They play exactly the same characters. The do nothing
new here and nothing funny. There's no reason for
them to exist at all in this film at all, really.
Likewise, almost all of the rest
of the film is useless. There's Bob Balaban as the
milquetoasty executive whose father has died. His
dad supposedly managed all these folk singers, so
they are all reunited for a final memorial concert
in his dad's honor. Along the way, the lackluster
Ed Begley Jr. plays a PBS exec (called PBN or something
like that here) who decides to air the concert on
his network. Here is a general idea of level of humor
in this film: Begley plays a character with a Swedish
name but uses a lot of Yiddish words. A Jewish Swede!
HAHAHAHA…hmmmm. Not fucking funny, man.
There's also an unfunny rivalry
between The Folksmen and a group of smiling, bouncy
folk sell-outs called The New Main Street Singers.
When the effervescent lead couple of that group is
spotlighted in the mockumentary, they show themselves
to be occultist (they worship the vibrations of vibrant
colors). The female, it is ham-handedly suggested,
was a porn star. (Okay, it's funny when she says she
was in a film called "Not So Tiny Tim" but otherwise
it is a rather rote idea for mockumentaries to show
"Shiny Happy People" as devil-worshippers and sex
maniacs).
No, the only thing truly of value
in this film is Eugene Levy. Currently riding a wave
of popularity with youngsters thanks to his appearance
in the "American Pie" films (part 3 is due this summer),
Levy could have coasted through this drivel. Instead
he creates a real and genuinely effecting character
that we grow to truly care about. Levy is obviously
the only one trying here. Well, except for Catherine
O'Hara who doesn't really do anything funny but works
opposite Levy (who doesn't really do anything funny
either, per se) and is wise enough to see he is doing
something of value of which she can be a part. The
duo work to create one of the most touching and genuine
moments in a mockumentary ever to be seen. It almost
makes "A Mighty Wind" worth watching.
Guest, however, with the help of
Shearer, has to end the film on one of the most mean-spirited
and downright homophobic jokes I've ever seen on screen.
It's just wrong. Worse yet it's tired and not funny.
Transgendered people should picket this film if this
epilogue is permitted to be included in the final
print.
I don't get mockumentaries. I don't
get "A Mighty Wind." If you like laughing at people
for being honest and being themselves, you should
really ask yourself why.
Note:
Also with Parker Posey and Fred
Willard.
The Folksmen first appeared on an
SNL skit in 1984 when Shearer and Guest were cast
members and McKean was host.
