Australian Penthouse

Directors Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites recently spoke to Australian Penthouse about their documentary Until The Light Takes Us—a deft exploration of Norwegian black metal and its notorious past.

You moved to Norway to film Until The Light Takes Us. How long were you there for?

Audrey Ewell: We were there for about a year and a half, and we started shooting after about three months.

Does it usually take that long to film a documentary?

AE: Only when the subjects don’t necessarily want to be in your documentary.

You had troubles with that?

AE: With some, yes. With some, no. The key interviewees from the movie are Fenriz from Darkthrone and Varg Vikernes from Burzum. We spoke to Fenriz very quickly, very early on. We told him what the documentary was going to be about and that we wanted him to be one of the central figures, and he agreed immediately. The other person that we had to have to make the film was Varg, and he didn’t agree to participate for eight months.

He has had issues with the media in the past, hasn’t he?

AE: Absolutely. He was extremely reticent, very wary. We were corresponding via letters, sending them back and forth while we lived in Oslo. We were trying to tell him what the movie was about, trying to explain to him why it was so important that he be in it. He just kept writing us these two and three page letters saying that even if we made exactly the film that he himself would make, he wouldn’t be in it. Then he’d list all the reasons why. The only thing that kept us going was that he’d end each letter with a question.

Why was it so important for him to be in the movie?

Aaron Aites: You could either have him and Fenriz in the movie, or you could have people talking about what they did. We weren’t going to do the movie without both of them. When it was looking like we weren’t getting both, we were just going to scrap the whole thing. Varg and Fenriz were the integral figures of the scene. I guess ideally you’d also have Euronymous and Dead, except both are deceased.  Varg and Fenriz are both alive and fundamentally involved, so I didn’t think it would be a movie I would want to see if it didn’t have both of them in it.

AE: Yeah, I think that’s what it comes down to. We didn’t think it would be a credible film on the subject without both of them.

I’ve heard you approached this project from a bit of an art-school angle—with post modernist philosophical contexts and such. What reception has that approach garnered?

AE: Gosh, you know… there’s been a certain degree of discomfort from some people, that we’re not huge metal heads and don’t come at this film from the position of being fans. I can understand certain fans having a sense of ownership over the genre, and wanting to retain that and have that real insider only thing with it, but what really interested us in the subject matter—besides actually liking most of the music a lot—was the way that the story of black metal was the story of trying to retain power over one’s creative output or identity, and how hard that is. We liked that there seemed to be quite a lot of overlap with that and with ideas in post modernism.

AI: I actually feel like even if you weren’t to have it as a focus or something you’re thinking about, it’s just inherently part of the project. They based a music genre of their own on a re-interpretation of another genre, and the point of conflict comes in when what they’d created was further re-interpreted in to something that was untenable to them, so I honestly feel like it is an integral part in understanding that whole scene.

AE: Right, so even if you’re not familiar with the tenets of post modern theory, it’s there in the story regardless. It was a really great way for us to be able to delve in to subject matter that was fascinating in its own right, but that also had this other really compelling element. That makes the story much broader, and much more universal.

I personally found its appeal in the fact it was an interesting portrait of some complex people, and a document of events that created a cultural mythology. But I’ve seen a lot of criticism about the lack of “director vision”. What are your thoughts on that criticism?

AI: That’s a point of conflict I have with a lot of people. I think in the documentary market the prevailing trend is to have a director who talks directly to the camera—to have the actual film maker be part of the film. We don’t like films like that, we didn’t want to make a film like that. Someone actually offered us our complete budget if we agreed to appear on camera, and have the film focus be more along the lines of us going to investigate black metal—

AE: I don’t think it is quite fair to say that we don’t like films like that. I mean, I do like Michael Moore for instance, and I think that his films serve a purpose, but I think that his films reach a very specific audience and that is basically the people who already agree with him.

AI: I agree, I like Michael Moore heaps, I just have no interest in making a Michael Moore film.

AE: Right, exactly. And I think it’s unfortunate that a bit of a trend has developed in that direction, where that is the only sort of documentary that’s acceptable anymore. I personally love Chris Marker, his film Sans Soleil is possibly my favourite film of all time. I mean, the list gets re-jiggered a lot but it’s right up there. With that film Marker was playing with the form of the genre, and I think there’s room for experimentation today, and I think there has to be experimentation in the form or the form itself dies. I think film is in bad enough shape as it is—as is basically all media at this point—where if you don’t continue to have that experimentation then it’s going to go the way of opera or any other dead—or nearly dead—form.

AI: For me, I feel like the importance of art is to show people something that will foster thinking, that will foster thoughts about things not only within the subject matter, but things that affect them (the people). It’s an important job to make a film that makes people think, as opposed to a film that tells people what to think. It’s not an editorial, we’re not reporters, it’s not about our opinion; it’s about hopefully presenting something that will inspire thought and conversation and catharsis on some level within the people that watch it. That’s the goal.

Do you think the movie could have worked if you’d presented it in the Michael Moore fashion?

AE: It would have been really reductive. I don’t think it would have worked for the audience, except perhaps for stupid people. But I think that we probably could have gotten away with it with the people involved in the movie, because there hasn’t been another film made about them. Yeah, we probably could have gotten away with it, it just—

AI: It would have been easier, I’ll tell you that.

I’ve heard a few references throughout this conversation to things being difficult. How much of a struggle was this project?

AI: The way a film like this gets financed is sort of like an inch worm. So we’d do something, edit it together and show it to people and be like, “Okay, can we have some more money now?”

That set up made it a longer process. It was also more difficult in dealing with the subjects because it’s important that, you know… Just sort of basic film things, like if you ask them a question, you have to get them to rephrase their answer so it makes sense sort of standing alone. It is more time intensive to make a film like this.

AE: What a lot of people don’t know though is we had a sort of thesis going in—a design document for what the film was going to be. We really mapped it out in advance, and we were not winging it at any point. We knew exactly what we were going for, and it was still incredibly difficult to get that and to get it quickly.

Did you get the film you expected to get?

AI: For the most part. I mean obviously, with the any long term endeavour, there’s things that I maybe wish we’d done differently, but for the most part we really did get it. But of course you’re always dealing with other people too. So you’re sort of like—

AE: Right, so just because you write in the design document that you’re going to talk about this thing or that thing doesn’t mean it will happen—which we actually did, by the way.  We’d done so much research that we had a strong idea of what responses would be to certain questions. But as much as we tried to script that in advance people don’t always follow the script, because it’s a documentary. Er, not that they ever saw any sort of script, but you know.

AE: I think that more intangibly, the thing that I was happiest with in conceptualising and actually finishing the film was that the tone of it was exactly what I wanted it to be. There was almost a dreaminess to some of it, without being overtly—well, actually, some people do think it’s overtly arty—but a certain dreaminess, an atmosphere that we wanted to create. The atmosphere in Norway itself is so strong and the atmosphere of the early records is so strong, that it was something we wanted to try to recreate in some way, with the visuals and the music and the pacing.

AI: I think, yeah, definitely the pacing.

AE: Yeah, and to try and transfer that atmosphere from the music in the early records and the early aesthetic of black metal in to the film. I was happy with the way that happened. And a lot of people who are really hardcore black metal fans have come up to us and said, “I watched this movie and it brought back that feeling of the old days.” That’s a great thing to hear.

You seemed to look at a very specific era of black metal—up until about the mid-‘90s. What was the significance of that period?

AI: This film is about a specific group of people, in a way, and essentially their story pretty much stops when Euronymous is murdered and Varg goes to jail.

AE: It was the court trials that really did it. It created a real splintering in the scene.

AI: And we sort of do try to go on and show the process of what happened next, but in terms of the history we were after, in terms of this specific scene—

AE: It’s not to say there aren’t still bands making and releasing black metal albums in Norway, there are, but in terms of what made this specific scene so special, it was that spark in the beginning, that intention to make a very specific style of music. All the crime and violence erupted out of that spark, and then all of that was interpreted by the media, and then the media interpretations were taken on by younger kids around the country who then created a second wave of very mis-interpreted black metal. Once we were able to follow that process and show it happening through the trial and the media frenzy in Norway, that was basically as far as that story went. We wanted to take it in to the present day and show the affect that this was having on Fenriz, who essentially created the genre (he released the first black metal album with Darkthrone)—we wanted to follow it in to the present day with him, and with artists who are now re-contextualising it as high art. We wanted to show the transformation.

But as far as the history of black metal, we basically take that up to through the mid-nineties.

So that’s the genuine period of the original sound?

AE: Exactly.

How would you describe the state of black metal today—do you think it has been co-opted completely?

AI: It’s just a different thing. It’s a different animal. It’s pretty much unrecognizable when you sit it next to what it started as. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it is good or bad, it’s just different.

AE: It feels strange that we still have to talk about this after things like Commodify Your Dissent by Noam Chomsky, but it’s just the same cycle that keeps repeating, and it doesn’t seem like there is any way to stop it. If you can commodify the burning of a church—and you can—then it would appear there is actually nothing you can’t commodify in this world.

AI: And rebellion is impossible.

AE: Rebellion is impossible, you are doomed to fail.

Of course: rebellion was the first ideal to be commodified. But the whole black metal thing seems to be more about commodifying the really thin line between activism and terrorism than anything else. It was the founding guys who were walking that line, and it was those guys and their line that created the frenzy, wasn’t it?

AI: Yes, yes, definitely. Without a doubt, I agree with that.

AE: I think they really blurred that line. There’s a case to be made for an activist element in what they’re doing, certainly by their own reckoning, and then there is also obviously the real violence. That said, there’s violence sometimes in activism too, so..

AI: And there’s violence in other forms of music as well.

AE: I mean, look at those students in England who are completely outraged now that their tuition fees are going to be doubled. And why wouldn’t they be? But they’re violently protesting, so are they activists or are they terrorists? They’re actually just pissed off kids. There wasn’t a lot of forethought to their riots, you know, and I think it is the forethought that defines which side of the line you’re on.

What stands out most to you about your experiences in Norway?

AE: For me it is the hideous food. I’m a vegetarian, and it’s not a vegetarian-friendly country.

Do they eat a lot of fish there, or what?

AE: They do. I don’t eat fish, but they do.

AI: A lot of sandwiches too, they’re big on sandwiches. I thought the food was fine. The entire time period that we were actually in Norway was closer to two years, because we went back after we did some pre-editing, and we spent that whole time really just trying to say one thing. It was two years of our lives, so there was really a lot of ups and downs and a lot of…

AE: But they were extreme. The ups were extreme, the downs were extreme, I think maybe that’s what I’ll end up remembering in fifty years—the really high highs and the really low lows. It’s very easy to get depressed in a country where maybe you get three hours of muddy daylight for half the year.

AI: Another thing I remember was this feeling of just losing track of who I was, to a certain extent. Being there for so long, you’re away from your family and your friends and anyone who can identify you as you. To take that and put it in the context of being in a country where literally everyone that knew us knew us as ‘the film directors’… That identity took over our lives. These people knew us as this one certain aspect, and so that aspect completely took over our lives. The whole thing became this befuddling personality dislocation, and then coming back and being suddenly thrust back in to the world we remembered from before…

AE: Except that world’s moved on quite a few years.

AI: I think that sort of jarring sense of alienation is what I will remember from the experience. But we met a lot of great people and I’m proud of what we did, and so I will remember it for that too. I’m proud of the work that we did.

Until The Light Takes Us is out now (RRP $29.99).

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