Recommendations of the Editorial team
Depeche Mode fans will soon be able to relive the band’s Memento Mori world tour on Netflix. On Monday, the streaming platform announced that it would be releasing “Depeche Mode: M,” the band’s concert film and documentary, will stream starting Friday, January 9th.
Music, death and cultural perspectives
Half concert film and half documentary, the film was directed by Fernando Friar and follows the group during their three shows in September 2023 at Foro Sol in Mexico City.
The film doesn’t just shed light on the band’s music. But also Mexico’s cultural approach to understanding death – and how this reflects themes that run through the group’s discography. Especially after the death of keyboardist Andy “Fletch” Fletcher. The Memento Mori tour marked the band’s first performances without Fletcher, who died of an aortic dissection in 2022.
“Depeche Mode: M” serves as “a window into the band’s timeless global influence and a powerful tribute to the unbreakable connection between music, tradition and the human spirit,” according to a statement from the band in April. The film also features narration by actor Daniel Giménez Cacho as well as interviews with fans, artists and other cultural commentators.
Festival premiere and response
“Depeche Mode: M” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June, before a theatrical release and a live album followed in October. Fans were previously able to rent and download the film online.
“Melancholy has long been an important part of the Depeche Mode experience. They specialize in vulnerability. This openness, a sense of surrender, is now Depeche Mode’s essential ingredient,” said a Rolling Stone review of the album at the time of its release. “Acknowledgment of mortality characterizes much of ‘Memento Mori’. But it never feels heavy or particularly dark. Some of the tracks even sound upbeat.”