Swedish artist Ragnar Persson enjoys drinking lots of wine & listening black-speed-death-thrash-gore metal music. The underlying theme of his pencil renderings are those of entranced little girls wearing King Diamond t-shirts, while strolling in dark, wolf-filled woods. Ragnar is currently showing his works in a group exhibition curated by Malmö, Sweden's KRETS, titled KNOCK KNOCK at Needles & Pens in San Francisco through November 30th.
“As richly compelling and artfully shot as rock docs get.”--Aaron Hillis, LA Weekly
This riveting documentary is not a music movie but a clear-sighted investigation into the murky subculture of Norwegian black metal music, whose history, though distorted and sensationalized by the press, is still pretty sensational even in the undistorted version, strewn with the ashes of torched churches and the blood of murder and suicide victims. As the filmmakers note, black metal “blurs the line between music, art, activism and terror...there’s really no other art or music or ideological movement like it.” Focusing on three figures--self-destructive pioneer Dead (of the group Mayhem), convicted murderer Varg Vikernes (of Burzum), and the relatively moderate Gylve Nagell (of Darkthrone)--UNTIL THE LIGHT draws a deeply, disturbingly ambivalent portrait of a contradictory movement that is too complex either to endorse or to dismiss. In English and Norwegian with English subtitles. DigiBeta video. (MR)
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