This Is Spinal Tap

So the legendary British rockers "Spinal Tap" are on the comeback trail. After a dry spell in the USA, they determine to take their provocative new album and their film-faking fan "Marty" (Rob Reiner) and re-establish themselves as superstars. "Marty" has access to all aspects of their activities as he makes the ultimate fly-on-the-wall documentary depicting the ups and downs, warts and all, of this band of musicians who epitomise just about everything good, bad and excessive in the industry at which this film takes an entertaining swipe. Interspersed with some decently staged rock numbers that could easily have been seen on MTV, we are exposed to the extremes of venality and avarice, some completely bonkers lyrics and their gradual realisation that the grand stadium days are maybe long gone, now. The bickering always stays on the amiable side of toxic, but squabbles about their racy album cover being banned in Walmart, their shrinking appeal narrowed now to just to stoned-out students and their own peccadilloes deliver an enjoyably authentic looking and frequently quite funnily written analysis of life on the downward side of the showbiz mountain - and it's quite scathing of those who make a living out of it with little or no talent but a solid belief in what they see in the mirror. This is British sarcasm and irony at it's cinematic best, disguised in a faux environment that even now, after forty years, is still often laugh out loud.

Interesting, remarkable for its subgenre, credible… but I didn't find it funny. I'm not a specific admirer of mockumentaries, but I recognize their value if they're funny. The film reports on the tour of a British rock band called Spinal Tap, and shows the enormous difficulties and crazy things they carry out on and off the stage. It's supposed to be a comedy... but, to be honest, it didn't make me laugh. I recognize the value that this film had for the cinematographic subgenre it launched, and the interest that the film has for cinema students and others who deepen their knowledge of the seventh art in greater detail. For me, as I'm just a guy who watches films because he likes them, it's different: it's harder to convince me to watch this a second time because of the many technical arguments they might use. Being a comedy, it has to be funny. If it doesn't, it failed as a comedy (even considering the fact that I may not be the target audience, that would just be a sign that it's not a film for me). Although it didn't make me laugh, I recognize that Rob Reiner does an interesting job and manages to give his film enormous authenticity on all levels. I wonder what fieldwork he did to prepare for the project, whether he spoke to journalists who follow the music industry, with bands or music artists, because in fact the film captures quite well the bizarre things that can happen on a rock tour. And the work of the main actors (Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest) is equally worthy if we consider that much of what they say is improvised at that moment, not previously written. The film looks cheap and this is perhaps even intentional: the cinematography resembles a “found-footage” film, with the image shaky, poorly calibrated, full of grain at times. The sets are very good and the soundtrack, made for the film, is absolutely believable.