Blur

This year I finally made it. I'd been wanting to attend the Seeyousound festival in Turin (www.seeyousound.org) for a while, and this year I managed to be there for the first two days. Seeyousound is a unique event: a film festival entirely dedicated to music. Between documentary and biopic screenings, short film and music video showcases, themed film presentations attended by directors, and live music shows, the festival, now in its eleventh edition, is a treat for anyone who loves cinema and is passionate about music. It's possible to see films that are otherwise very hard to find in theaters and that become cult objects; plus, the Cinema Massimo, with its powerful sound system, is the best place to enjoy images and music together.

As I said, this year I finally made it. The festival kicked off on Saturday, February 22nd, running for a week, and the Friday evening before offered a tasty preview: the Italian premiere of the new documentary on Blur, "Blur: To the End". The tale of the London standard-bearers of Britpop, the story of a band "you can't help but love".

The documentary, it must be said right away, is not a nostalgia trip. It doesn't tell the story of Blur, but focuses on the band's 2023 comeback, the year they released their first album in 8 years ("The Ballad Of Darren"), and on the preparations for two memorable shows at Wembley Stadium in London.

The story told by director Toby L., who was present in the theatre during the screening, is that of a group of former lads who use affection as the spark to get back into the game and fulfil the dream of a lifetime: playing Wembley. It's a story that is both intimate and universal; the choice was to follow the London band camera-on-shoulder, to capture the most intimate moments of the four members meeting up to prepare the album and rehearse: jokes, confessions, hushed conversations.

At the same time it's universal because it tells something we can all recognise: the importance of friendship and finding meaning in life, the strength of togetherness that outlasts the passing of time. The director shows the respect of a fan, and he does so with two qualities that won me over: firstly, it isn't a story told in the past tense; it recounts the present of an essential band, leaving a question mark and a hope hanging in the air: after the two Wembley shows, will they come back? Secondly, from a technical standpoint, it doesn't resort to those tiresome sideways interviews with journalists or ageing friends reminiscing about the good old days, but lets only the protagonists speak while they act. Direct sound, ambient mics, a dynamism that makes the film enjoyable from start to finish. The real challenge, says the director, was condensing 300 hours of footage into a film an hour and a half long.

It begins with a shaky camera that takes us inside Damon's car, following him to his countryside home-studio, cut off from the world, where he has already recorded the vocal tracks for the new album. Damon waits for his bandmates, who join him one by one to re-form their group of friends. Amid personal revelations ("Damon is someone who can't stop working and writing songs, he does it all the time. We're sitting at a table drinking beer and he grabs a napkin and starts writing; I think it's his way of avoiding dealing with something going on inside him") and glimpses of present-day life ("At fifty I still go out to parties, but then I don't bounce back the way I used to", confesses Alex James), the film allows only a few brief glimpses of the past: quick frames that draw a parallel between the present moments and those that once were.

The fourth documentary dedicated to Blur — after "Starshaped", "No Distance Left To Run" and "New World Towers" — Toby L.'s film offers a fresh perspective, following the unique bond of four friends and bandmates spanning three decades, revealing the band's life in an intimate, unfiltered way. Enriched with exclusive footage alternating live performances of their most iconic songs, studio moments and life on the road, "Blur: To The End" is a deep portrait of one of England's longest-running and most influential bands, one that has also left an indelible mark thanks to the sonic experimentation carried out over the years by the multifaceted Albarn.

"We wanted to deliver an emotional charge through the Wembley experience, but still leave the audience wanting to know more. There's a fair amount of music represented in this film — from the studio to the rehearsal room, to the warm-up, to Wembley — but we tried to strike the right balance, since this is a personal story. Working with Blur on this documentary over the past year has been the honour of a lifetime" — says the director. "They were the first band I ever saw, when I was 10 years old, at Wembley Arena. To think that just over 25 years later I would go on to make a film with the band that changed my entire outlook on art, culture and music remains utterly surreal. I hope that through watching it, people will feel a little closer to this incredible group of artists and friends, and come away with a richer understanding of a life spent in a band".

Between one rehearsal and another, a worry here and a moment of exhausted venting there, we arrive at the memorable scenes of the final concert, in which the director captures the essence of the band in the glances they exchange and in the childlike expressions of a moment of pure happiness. Will Blur come back? We really hope so.

Ride the wave of great music

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