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What’s wrong with Lords of Chaos film?

In February 2019 there will be screenings of “Lords of Chaos” film which is built around the famous bloody history of  Mayhem and the rise of the Norwegian Black Metal. The film was produced by famous clip maker and former Bathory member Jonas Åkerlund. The news about release of this film caused a great resonance among fans of Black Metal and others. And the resonance lies in the fact that this is not a documentary but a feature film based on events that are described in the eponymous raucous book Lords of Chaos. A direct participant of those events, Varg Vikernes, spoke extremely negatively about this film and urged to the boycotting and not watching this as he believes that the main purpose of the film is not a trustworthy re-creation of those events or a searching for truth but a way to make money and hype. According to him, the filmmakers are not interested in anything except money. He argues that the filmmakers did not even contact with those who were involved in the scene of those years and did not get the rights to reproduce Mayhem and Burzum music. It sounds quite funny. If you have not seen his remark, you can watch it at ThuleanPerspective. And Varg has the right to criticize and urge to boycott the film because, most likely, he will be shown as an anti-hero with misrepresenting of the real facts, as it is built more around the character of Euronymous.

But what’s wrong with the film?

The idea to make a feature film about Black Metal is quite interesting. However, in my opinion, the creators made a big mistake. They decided to use the real names of the characters and the names of bands as it evidenced by the recently released movie trailer. And not without Mayhem music here. And this fact causes a flurry of indignation from the side of participants and witnesses of those events. But, apparently, this story can’t be told with other names. So who will get benefits from this? All this hype around the film without a doubt will be play into the hands of Mayhem as the band still exists and actively performs around the world. I don’t think that the count of Mayhem fans will decrease after this movie. Most likely vice versa. No matter how resentful metalheads and musicians are, but this film will serves as an advertisement for Black Metal. Even if he fails miserably there will be no losers anyway. In any case, you don’t need to treat the artistic picture seriously as a reliable source of information. Of course, there will be truth and lies, but in fact not many people know in details what really happened. Therefore, it is necessary to watch it with such point. As for the rest, then, in my opinion, this sensational story is quite worthy for screen version. And considering the fact that Jonas Akerlund is an expert at the production of clips, we can not worry about the quality of picture and sound. I am more disappointed that half-naked whores dressed in Burzum and Mayhem T-shirts will become even more on the Internet after the releasing of film.

Summary. We should watch the film “Lords of Chaos” anyway. Maybe it will serve as an impetus for coming of new fans who will like Black Metal (if these people will have this opportunity). Those who are skeptical of this film should not be perceived it as a source of reliable information. All that remains is to find out how charismatically and authentically the actors played their roles because without people who know a lot about this case the film may turn out to be a talentless production of a legendary story. But nothing cardinal will happen for the ordinary viewer. He will perceive this picture as an action-packed drama about teenagers. So is it worth worrying about that? I think no.

Russian version

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Temple of Death founder, web designer, translator, big fan of extreme metal music with 20 years of experience.

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