Blur
No Distance Left To Run

THE REVIEW

Well, yes. A film about Blur. A documentary about Blur. A film-documentary about Blur, about their history, filled with difficulties, successes, disappointments, alcohol, love, hate, unions, separations, drugs, and above all, music obviously; their music in which they deeply believe.

An important film, let's say it right away, because it is a snapshot of a period that spans from the early '80s to the late '00s, told through the eyes and words of Albarn, Coxon, James, and Rowntree; enriched with often beautiful images edited in a truly captivating way.

Captivating, indeed, and fast, innovative, never boring. It's not the usual self-congratulatory documentary pointless in itself; here, there is absolutely nothing self-congratulatory.

After all, with the dirty and compelling documentary "Starshaped" they had already warned us: "se famo un documentario o' famo strano ma con classe". And indeed.

There are the very first concerts that ended with Albarn throwing up behind the drums after just 4 songs, there's the absolute non-conformity of Coxon, a true anti-rockstar, already an alcoholic during the post "The Great Escape" period and disgusted by many aspects of the system yet not losing his loose and amused tone for this, there's "Beetlebum" which is finally revealed to be a song about "a period of life compromised by heroin".

The focus then shifts, of course, to the reasons why Coxon left the group in '02 in the middle of the "Think Tank" recordings and the other three continued without him. The story lingers on their moving decision to return to playing together for the pleasure of playing together, maybe for the last time.

And then the "trash," as Coxon calls it, of the "blur/oasis" rivalry, Albarn's panic attacks and his depression that led him to write many of the songs on "13", the fights among the four during the hardest periods of their journey because, as James says, "sometimes it's easier to hit someone than to tell them to shut up." Or Coxon, who, drunk, destroys the bus that was taking them on tour during their dramatic 1992, with Rowntree laughing, remembering how watching that scene at that moment was damn sad.

In the background, the socio-cultural-musical context of an era (the story, I repeat, starts from 1980 because it was during that period the four from Colchester met).

The film keeps you there, glued to the screen. And that's no small feat.

A necessary film, definitive in some way because it shows everything that needed to be shown about one of the most important bands of the last 20 years and, I repeat, without any sterile and boring self-celebration.

A band that has never lost its (enormous) talent, but that has never lost even its characteristic, precious irony and the desire to never take itself too seriously.