Ryan McNeil
At the risk of being ex-communicated from my hometown, I have a confession: I’ve never been a fan of Broken Social Scene.
It’s hard to explain precisely why, except to say that I just didn’t get them. Their sound is sprawling, spiralling, and non-linear. They couldn’t care less about hooks or singles. Quite honestly, they always seemed to want to pulverize me using a wall of sound coming through my own headphones. However, around eight-thirty tonight, it all clicked. Where once I was deaf, now I can hear. I throw my hands up – I am a believer in Broken Social Scene! Effin’ hallelujah!
The catalyst to my musical transubstantiation is THIS MOVIE IS BROKEN. The film is Bruce McDonald’s documentary about a BSS concert from last summer. The show already has a few elements of lore ingrained into it. For starters, many friends of the band were on hand to play along with, including Evan Cranley and Amy Milan from Stars, Emily Haines and James Shaw from Metric, Jason Collett and Feist. Added to that is the fact that the show was a free gig – a last minute make-up for a show cancelled for reasons beyond the band’s control.
Capturing such a unique musical experience would have been achievement enough, however McDonald had other ideas. Together with writer/director Don McKellar, McDonald used the concert as a backdrop for a fictional story. The show becomes the centerpiece for the story of Bruno and Caroline (Greg Calderone and Georgina Reilly). The couple are childhood friends, whose friendship has turned into something more, if only for one day.
What makes the marriage of the story and the show such a unique one is the very way those tracks echo the moment Bruno and Caroline find themselves in. Caroline is only in town for a day, so whatever it is that’s going on between her and Bruno has a very short lifespan…the immediacy of which is evoked beautifully in the urgent opening chords of the film’s opening track “Major Label Debut”.
The film’s most beautiful marriage of sight and sound comes during a performance of guitarist Brendan Canning’s “Chameleon”. The song with its long, leisurely, introspective intro seems like it was written for moments of contention on a summer evening. As it were, it’s very particular summer, and the scene will immediately take any Torontonian back to that specific night.
The song becomes the backdrop for a sequence where our heroes make their way to the show doubled up on a bicycle. As the melody lifts and optimism abounds, we watch the couple weave along the empty Honda Indy Track, with glimpses of the kids they once where visible in their expressions. As the setting sun soaks them, their feelings are echoed with the song’s lyrics “You can throw your arms up/ you can be at ease/ stick to things that remind you/ of where you used to be.”
When they, and likewise we, get to the show – the show we’ve only been seeing in glimpses up until now – the experience is grounded in the way we keep coming back to Bruno and Caroline. Knowing how much they love the band, we can share in their excitement when Kevin Drew and Feist sing “Past In Present” together, eventually hearing it give way to “I Feel It All”.
What makes the film work so well might be what helped me to see the light where Broken Social Scene is concerned: context. A big fan of theirs always told me “You have to see them live”, a suggestion I always shrugged off. Watching the band (and all their friends) play off each other on stage gives the music a thread of community I never understood. Much like we are apt to do around the people we love, their songs often take the scenic route, and tell you a few stories on the way. Some are able to hear this idea just by pushing ‘play’.
I on the other hand had to see it to understand it…perhaps even to believe it.
THIS MOVIE IS BROKEN premiered at NXNE on Thursday, June 17th. It is now playing an exclusive run at The Scotiabank Theatre.