Hi Mark, we start this week with a documentary. What do we see in Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99?
The documentary (Jamie Crawford, Netflix, three episodes, non-fiction) shows why the 1999 Woodstock Festival, which was organized to revive the success of the legendary 1969 festival, turned out to be such a disaster. This was a man madedisaster, largely attributable to a flawed, mainly money-hungry organization.
‘Woodstock one more time, it felt like one last chance to host the festival of festivals. In addition, the first major school shooting occurred in the US. The organization longed for the ‘love and peace’ of Woodstock. But you soon see that the main goal was to cash in big. For example, the festival was held at an old air force base, not the original location, so that people who didn’t have tickets were kept out by fences and barbed wire. Quite cynical of course, to organize a festival about love and peace at a former air force base.
‘The mixture of naive Woodstock idealism and brutal commercialism soon led to problems. The catering on the festival site – where 250,000 people would camp for three days – was outsourced. A bottle of water cost four dollars. But also the food, the number of clean toilets and showers: it was all below average.
‘And that became more and more problematic as the weekend went on, in the scorching heat on a site with no shade. Add to that the fact that the programming was quite one-dimensional and ‘angry’: it consisted of metal bands such as Rage Against the Machine and Limp Bizkit, popular with frat boys who went on to drink and drugs en masse. It feels like watching an impressive live coverage of the apocalypse.
‘During the documentary you feel that a certain tension builds up that has nowhere to go. Young women on the property were not safe in the midst of that angry mob of horny teenagers going wild. It is striking that the organisers, who are also being interviewed, still do not admit their mistakes. Well, what do you want if you put 250,000 people together, it sounds. While some questions remain unanswered – there must be more to the mob’s idiotic behavior – there is… Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 an impressive report of how the atmosphere at a festival can change completely.’
And which series do you recommend?
‘Irma Vepi (Olivier Assayas, HBO Max, eight episodes, fiction), in which we follow the making process of a feature film in today’s Paris. With this series, French maker Assayas reflects on his 1996 feature film, also titled Irma Vepi. She is a popular crime movie fictional character Les Vampires from the 10’s of the last century.
‘Irma Vepi is about the film industry, French culture but also about Assayas himself. Images from the original Les Vampiresmovies are interspersed with new scenes. Above all, we take a look behind the scenes of a major film production, where a neurotic director, an alter ego of Assayas, has to work with, for example, a producer who keeps a close eye on the purse strings, and with a major international star played by the Swedish actress Alicia Vikander.
‘That leads to funny confusions: are they talking about the film they are making, or the film you are watching? This sounds like an intellectual film lecture, but it is Irma Vepi definitely not. You really get the feeling as if you are on a film set and see how people for such a production experience a few very intense moments together, before flying on to the next project. The director wants to make art, the producer wants to make money and the lead actress is looking for herself. Assayas’ goal: to definitively map out how you make a film, with all the absurdity and beauty that comes with it.’
Other top series that can also be seen:
The excellent series Under the Banner of Heaven (Dustin Lance Black, Disney Plus, seven episodes) links a murder case to the bloody history of the Mormon church. The truth shakes the faith of the detective involved.
In the latest season of the Swedish crime series Beck (NPO Plus, four episodes) the misanthropic sleuth has to settle for a consultant role, but he still gets enough energy from his intolerance of incompetence.