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Perhaps no movie playing at Venice this year was as shrouded in mystery as Alex Ross PerrysPavements.
And we knew it would not be a traditional music documentary.
In interviews, Perry called the film asemiotic experimentthat would pay tribute to the bands sardonic humor.
What do you mean?Essentially,Pavementsis four movies in one.
All four parts overlap with each other and sometimes play simultaneously on a split screen.
(However, even this came with its own accidental level of unreality.
However, those scenes almost exclusively come from the archival material.
Everyone seems to be getting along better now!
The second thread tracks rehearsals forSlanted!
Enchanted!, a jukebox musical based on Pavements music.
Reviews were positive, in anincredulous I-cant-believe-this-is-real sense.
His mistake was thinking that the project being a joke precluded it from being produced.
Based on the brief snippets ofSlanted!
Enchanted!seen in the film, the sincerity manages to win out.
Wasnt there also a Pavement museum around this time?Yes!
The museum exhibit is the third and shortest thread of the film.
But like the musical, a pseudo-event can still inspire actual emotions.
As guitarist Scott Kannberg enthuses while exploring the exhibit, I thought it was supposed to be fake.
So that only leaves the biopic.
Other young actors like Nat Wolff and Fred Hechinger show up as themselves playing the other members of Pavement.
All of them speak frequently about the career benefits they hope to gain from starring in a music biopic.
What scenes we do see from the biopic are purposefully shoddy and studded with For Your Consideration chyrons.
So the biopic just straight-up doesnt exist?I dont think so?
The film includes footage supposedly from the world premiere ofRange Lifeat a movie theater in Brooklyn.
Theres a red carpet, a step-and-repeat, and a talkback.
If you go online, you’re free to findrecordsof this event taking place last year.
Is all of this meta stuff exhausting?Honestly, its pretty funny.
Perrys pranks, puckishness, and masturbatory self-indulgence feel incredibly true to the spirit of Pavement.
Does the movie claim that Pavement wasname-dropped inBarbie?Yes, but unfortunately this too is an invention.
TheBarbiescene shown at the end ofPavementswas a deep fake.
(The real reference was Nada Surf.)
The Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach seen interacting with Malkmus were actually elaborate animatronics.
