Hot Docs 2012 - Shut Up and Play the Hits (Lovelace & Southern, 2011) ****

I illegally downloaded LCD Soundsystem's first self-titled album in 2005, which was just when I was starting university. I hadn't known the face of the band, the wunderkind James Murphy, other than what I had read about him in SPIN magazine. But what I remember is that the music was almost revolutionary for its day: it was like Murphy took all the genres he liked and threw them in a blender and they came out as this new genre called "dance rock" that suddenly became all the buzz. Murphy was unapologetically cynical in his lyrics and in the hard-edged disco grooves laid down beneath his voice, his music influencing a new generation of genre-busting rock musicians. Cut to 2011. Just months after releasing the band's successful third album "This is Happening", Murphy, 41 years old, decides to call it quits. Shut Up and Play the Hits is a concert film that captures the band's final concert at Madison Square Gardens, as well as a behind the scenes meditation on aging and morality as an artist in the 21st century.

For those unfamiliar with LCD Soundsystem, I would describe Lovelace and Southern's film as kind of a mash-up between Scorsese's The Last Waltz chronicalling the last show of The Band (rest in peace, Levon Helm) and Jonathan Demme's masterpiece, Stop Making Sense, the Talking Heads concert film. Sequences during the actual show itself are meticulously shot and edited, with lots of lush, sweeping camera moves and artful, dynamic framing that add an adrenaline fueled feeling to the already spectacular performance of the band and the accompanying light show. Special guests include members of Arcade Fire, Reggie Watts, and even a brief cameo by the wonderful Donald Glover as a spectator. In the pantheon of great farewell concerts, Murphy, who describes it in the film as a "giant high school musical", put on one of the most memorable and kinetic shows of all time.

Intercut with concert footage are segments that bookend each song. Murphy is interviewed just before the show by the incisvely nerdy Chuck Klosterman, who pushes the musician to come to terms with his decision to leave his greatest accomplishment by the wayside. We also see what amounts to Murphy's entire lazy hungover day-after the show, as he purges the necessary emotions and begins his retirement. Thematically, Shut Up and Play the Hits asks questions about art and fate. Do we let our art govern our paths in life, or will our conscience inevitably come to shed the art from our lives as we get older, and it loses meaning. Or does the art we create ever lose meaning? One of the strongest concert films in years and the most visually stunning documentary at Hot Docs 2012 thus far.

Hot Docs 2012 - Charles Bradley: Soul of America (Brien, 2012) *****

Filmmaker and Music Video director Poull Brien's first documentary Charles Bradley: Soul of America is a truly funky, modern and inspiring story about Daptone Records artist Charles Bradley's ascension to worldwide recognition and success in the face of great adversity, heartbreak and perseverance. The same deeply felt soul that is so prevalent in Bradley's debut album No Time for Dreaming is mined by Brien's documentary; a real feeling of soul that Bradley exudes in his amazing music and his explosive stage performance.

Bradley's story begins as a 62 year old James Brown impersonator discovered by Gabriel Roth and Neil Sugarman of Daptone Records, famous for catapulting Sharon Jones into the limelight and recording Amy Winehouse's most acclaimed album Back to Black. We catch up with Bradley roaming the same Brooklyn and Bed-Stuy neighbourhoods of New York that he grew up in, doting on his feisty old mother, dodging the violence and depression of the building projects, hoping and praying that his record finds an audience and finally breaking into the music business after years of exploitation and bad luck.

Poull shoots with a sharp eye for framing, colour and objectivity, letting Bradley tell his life's story on his own terms and letting powerful, crisply edited music sequences play on. Described by his songwriting partner, producer and recording engineer Tom Brenneck as one of the "greatest story tellers he's ever met", Bradley's many, sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking tales are rendered by Brien as memorable reenactments; a fresh visual approach that at times feels like a music video, but leave indelible emotional impressions, bringing us closer to the man.

I've been a fan of Charles Bradley's music for sometime now and have nothing but respect and admiration for him. One of the final tracks off his album, called "Why is it So Hard?" is a raw and moving song about growing up and having to fight everyday just to survive. I think the reason why Charles Bradley's music and story connects with such a broad base of people is because it touches on the nerve of so many who know what it's like to feel loss and the biting anxiety of what lies ahead in life. It's also the reason why we gather to see films and documentaries: to be collectively inspired and remind ourselves of the perseverance of the human spirit. Charles Bradley: Soul of America is an instant classic and a must see for lovers of inspirational urban documentaries and soul and funk music.

Hot Docs 2012 - Beware of Mr. Baker (Bulger, 2012) ****

Rolling Stone journalist-turned-documentarian Jay Bulger's Beware of Mr. Baker is a tough, hilarious ride through the life of Ginger Baker, one of the most infamous musicians-among-musicians of the 20th century. Famous for his stint as the drummer for the legendary 1960s rock band Cream, Bulger plunges us into the dark, dangerous, consistently self-destructive exploits of a damaged man whose musical ability was forged from the flames of World War II, a fatherless family and the violence of the schoolyard. But where your cookie-cutter doc about a musician would focus on the point of view of the subject and those he influenced, Bulger takes a kitchen sink approach that includes animated sequences, incredibly rare archival footage and interviews with famous drummers, adding up to a doc that is at times revelatory, sometimes disturbing, but always refreshing.  

For over 18 years of my life, I have been a drummer and percussionist, so I have a lot of theories about rhythm and it's place in human history: how is it used as a tool for freedom and release, what is it about the feeling of hands or sticks on skins that elicits a feeling of power and survival? Bulger's doc asks these same questions. As we're taken through Baker's life, we see his some of his most important moments captured as animated sequences in the style of (as Bulger revealed in a post-screening Q&A) German expressionist art. We see him as as a teenager, listening to the sounds of his idol, jazz drummer Max Roach, watching his mentor simultaneously shoot heroin and introduce him to African music, his violent screaming matches with Cream bassist Jack Bruce (and Eric Clapton watching in the background, horrified) and a recurring sequence that renders Baker beating a large drum on a slave ship, keeping the boat above water with every stroke of the mallet, but enslaving all those who have to man an oar to survive. These sequences add a thematic depth to the idea hinted at by all the subjects in the film, that without the drum, Baker will completely self-destruct; an idea that lingers in the subconscious of many a drummer, but sumptuously visualized by Bulger. 

This is a music documentary that will mostly appeal to those interested in the dark, transgressive side of artistry and is not for the faint of heart, despite the relatively comedic tone Bulger's doc takes sometimes, bringing to mind a segment where Baker travels to Italy and lives in a decrepid house with an 18-year-old, on top of a mountain. Ginger Baker is twice divorced and has three children, one of which, who is a drummer himself, says Baker "should not have had children." He is described by many, as a "cunt", "complicated" and of course,"self-destructive". When asked if Mr. Baker had seen the film, Bulger says that Baker's reply was "it's my fucking life, I did it. Why do I need to fucking watch it?"