Yesterday, Mikaela and I continued our renovations. She bought a nice lamp to our living-room which we (didn't really) celebrated with a nice lunch. I love the lamp. The glare it emits is really nice. Mikaela actually pieced it together as all the wavy bits were bought straight.
We painted the bedroom white, but there was sadly only enough colour for one layer to be painted, so we're going to continue come next week-end. After that, the painting's done. In the evening we went to see “Some Kind Of Monster", which may be the best music documentary I've seen. It's actually a film on relations, more than being the promo thing on Metallica that it was supposed to become. The two film-makers were hired to make a little the-making-of-Metallica's-next-album-film, but during the start, Metallica's bassist quit the band and soon thereafter, the band sued Napster and hence drew heat from some fans and the singer admitted himself into a rehabilitation clinic, to treat his alcoholism. There and then, the record company wanted to stop the documentary from being made, but as Metallica had involved a group therapist to help them work out their terrible differences ("Soap-opera-like“ behaviours, said their drummer) they gave the film-makers a carte blanche to film as much as they wanted; they ended up with over 1600 hours of raw footage, and then condensed that into two hours and twenty minutes of documentary.
The documentary shows the three Metallica members at their most vunerable. The group seems set on either taking a break, or just splitting up, after starting to try and record a new album. They try fresh ways to create new music, and at the same time, the two biggest narcissists in the band (Hetfield, the singer, and Ulrich, the drummer) butt heads incessantly. At one point, these two figures argue whether or not Hetfield's new rules of life (after quitting rehab), e.g. only working between 12-16 and not letting the other band members listen to or talk about their new recordings, Ulrich says that even Hetfield's absense becomes a way of controlling. He adds that “I get the feeling all I do now is stand about and wait for you to give the sign for me to work", when the lead guitarist, Hammett, adds “That's what my life's been for the last 15 years.“ To which the viewer sees Hammett pull a face to which you can't do anything but laugh.
The documentary is full of humor and love, even though it's basically a most testing ordeal. The main characters even touch some old demons. I highly recommend this film, even if you don't like Metallica. I'm not into their music, so hey, see it!
By the way, here's a thought on the film. Careful, you spoiler freaks, I don't think you want to read the following if you haven't seen the documentary.
The therapist seems a little like a leech in the documentary, yet Mikaela pointed out that every person who starts feeling a lot better than they first started therapy, i.e. that the therapy should perhaps end, subconsciously feel the therapist is leeching a little, is getting to far into one's mind, et.c. basically feeling the therapist is acting like a guest who doesn't want to leave. This is apparently a natural feeling one has, when therapy is drawing towards its end. I think it's an interesting part that the film-makers should have put in the film. It's apparent that the band members really appreciated the therapist's presence; among other things his words made Hetfield sense he should enter rehab for alcoholism, which he did. He just wasn't portrayed as a very empathic character at the end of the film, methinks.