“In the mountains of Norway, where the weather is cold
There’s not much to do except kill each other
And play guitars in the snow
Corpse paint, which is a scary name for make-up, is what they wear
They’d resemble Ink and Dagger, if Ink and Dagger had long hair
They’re pretty evil, and they do not like God
I don’t care if they burn down churches
But they’d better not fucking touch a synagogue”
You won’t find a more succinct nor accurate summation of Norwegian black metal’s entire deal than that opening stanza to the Atom and His Package novelty song “Me and My Black Metal Friends,” which I listened to repeatedly years before I actually heard a proper black metal track. It touches on everything you need to know about black metal in just a few quick bullet points: the theatricality of the image, the brutality of the sound, the isolation of the region, the allure of the arson & murder and, most pivotally, the stain of antisemitism that sours most of the scene’s mystique. Maybe that’s why the 2008 documentary Until the Light Takes Us feels so thinly stretched across its 90-minute runtime. After all, Adam Goren was able to get its point across in less than 90 seconds an entire decade earlier. It doesn’t help that there have been two much heftier texts that have done much more extensive, contemplative work in autopsying the early black metal scene since: the 2013 “comprehensive guide” Black Metal: Evolution of the Occult, and the 2019 true crime drama Lords of Chaos (also adapted from a lengthy book). You can refer to the former for a big-picture encyclopedia of the black metal scene, which is mostly disregarded here in favor of dwelling on the grisly details of the murder that broke up the band Mayhem and made Norwegian black metal internationally infamous. The latter text, Lords of Chaos, also uses the Mayhem murder case as its focal point, but it does so with clear, critical purpose beyond morbid fascination: making fun of all involved. As a result, Until the Light Takes Us has little to offer to a 2020s audience beyond the novelty of seeing those better fleshed-out texts & images illustrated with real-life detail. Maybe it felt more significant 15 years ago, when I was still listening to smartass novelty songs, blissfully unaware of the white-nationalist ideology behind some of the scene’s monstrous guitar riffs.
The most salacious selling point for this festival-circuit documentary is that it interviews black metal musician Varg “Burzum” Vikernes in his jail cell about the reasoning behind his church burnings and his fatal stabbing of former Mayhem bandmate Euronymous, for which he was sentenced 21 years. Forever a publicity hound, Varg is eager to speak on the record, as it gives him an audience for the antisemitic, white nationalist talking points he feels have been misconstrued by the media. If this particular extension of The Media had a clear agenda of its own, it might not have given him such a wide platform to practice poised, philosophical hate speech without any editorial pushback either. There is some joy to be found in Varg’s frustration that his church burnings were misinterpreted as Satanic ritual by the press, but that feeling fades as he explains at length that the arson was meant to protest the way Christianity has erased & replaced Norway’s more authentic, ancient culture. It’s a sentiment that most reasonable people could agree with in broad strokes, which makes it all the more dangerous that it so easily slips into proud white-nationalist rhetoric (as easily as Varg labeling Christianity “a Jewish religion”). The only fellow player on the early black metal scene given equal screentime is the much more likeable Darkthrone musician Fenriz, who bumbles around modern Norway without any guiding political ethos beyond a love & nostalgia for vintage black metal aesthetics. Fenriz does a lot to explain what makes black metal such an enduring sound & image, but he does very little to overpower the hateful Nazi ideology Varg is spewing in their alternating interviews. Thankfully, the movie also includes sarcastic contributions from the older, wiser band members of Immortal, who essentially serve as the black metal Statler and Waldorf – mocking the kids beneath them for taking metal so unnecessarily seriously in the first place.
If there’s any way in which Until the Light Takes Us takes a clear point of view on the black metal scene, it’s in the way it strips the musicians of the Xeroxed-corpse-paint album covers that made them look so cool & mysterious to outsiders in the early 90s. It peers behind the veil of shock value self-promotion to show how mundane Varg & Fenriz’s lives look to the naked eye & camcorder. Between their messy apartments, their fluorescent-lit prison cells, and the corporatized, McDonalds-lined streets of Oslo, the movie zaps away all of the dark ritual & romance the scene cultivated through zine culture publicity stunts. The documentary’s low-fi digi sheen works in its favor in that way. It also echoes Fenriz’s explanation of how black metal musicians pioneered their signature “necro sound” by seeking out the worst, cheapest equipment they could blow out for a deliberately crunchy, D.I.Y. affect. Overall, Lords of Chaos does a much better job of taking a clear “point of view” on these gloomy nerds (by dunking on them mercilessly), but Until the Light Takes Us at least this makes their world look even smaller & less mystical. It’s a little frustrating that its soundtrack is so light on actual black metal music (instead relying on low-fi electro beats to study to for most of its mood setting), but that choice also strips Varg and his compatriots of the sound’s inherent cool. No matter how many vile “National Socialist Black Metal” bands with offensive-on-purpose names like Aryan Blood & Gestapo 666 have been inspired by Burzum’s Nazi rhetoric, the genre’s soaring guitar riffs still tower over you. Its blast-beat drumming still pummels the brain in just the right way. The trick is not letting the most despicable edgelords on the scene control the narrative and ruin the vibe, which is something this doc does without much of a fight. Fenriz’s metalhead aimlessness is adorable, but it’s not nearly potent enough to wash away the sour taste left by Varg. Thankfully, other works have since stepped in to take either a wider or a more fiercely critical view on the subject, although confusingly to much quieter fanfare.
-Brandon Ledet
Swampflix 