Pink Floyd has never been a favorite of mine, but I have always understood and appreciated their lyrical and musical genius. My father, on the other hand, has always been a huge fan of the band as well as the movie. I talked to him about the album a bit in order to get a perspective on the film from a person who had a deep and personal connection with the message being delivered. He told me that it was probably his favorite album; there was a period of time in college when he and his roommates listened to "The Wall," in parts or in its entirety, once a day for seven months. There has never been an album that has inspired me enough to hold my attention for more than a few weeks, and this made me think very hard about the messages that were being presented in the music as well as the story.
The film follows the album faithfully. The record is an autobiographical concept album about Pink, who deals with the death of his father in WWII, the overbearing nature of his mother, his troubles in school as a child, his failed marriage, and the creative and emotional slump that this culminated in. The result of which was a metaphorical wall to separate Pink from those that might enter his life just to hurt him again. The film took this story and created a visual representation set as rock opera. It is as much literal as it is conceptual, but it never compromises. Even though I was not a fan of the film in its entirety--like the album it came from--I appreciate spontaneous and fearless art in its raw form and therefore this film spoke loudly to me.
Speaking of art, this film not only blends music and image, there is also gorgeous, graphic illustrations that make up a significant portion of the film's abstract concepts. They make up about fifteen minutes of the running time and were created by political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe. They were by far my favorite moments of this cerebral film as I think they did a better job of conveying the messages of Pink Floyd's music than did the live action portions of the film. Much of the rest had little dialogue and parallel story lines that were rather uninteresting. The illustrated portions, by contrast, were so vibrant and alive that the grotesque, sexual, and morbid statements made that much more of an impression.
The film's messages deal mostly with loneliness, and how integrity is compromised by Pink's ideas of fascism. There were many images and scenes in the film that were Teutonic in design and mood that were strong and frightening, but were rather confusing in what was being said. In his mind Pink was a Neo-Nazi with a black uniform, shaved eyebrows, and a mass of followers made of rebel youth. So much of the music was an attack on establishment and the brainwashing that goes hand in hand with education and parental discretion that I was confused to see Pink in an intentional send up of The Fuhrer. There was irony in its statements, but it might have made a stronger statement had it been someone else standing at the pulpit. Was its point that we become what he hate even if we don't want to? Do the seeds planted at a young age reveal themselves whether we want them to or not? It was not as explicit as it should have been.
Had that point been clearer I then I would say that the finale came twenty minutes too soon. There is a moment in the film that is incredibly powerful, but the strength that it might have given to the movie was diminished a bit by the structure of the story which was unfortunate. It was a scene paying homage to Leni Riefenstahl's infamous documentary of the Nazi rally in Nuremberg, Triumph of the Will. The best scenes in this movie were those that were group shots; Bob Geldof was lacking as the troubled rocker, Pink, and the scenes with just him were uninteresting.
This is a very creative and inspired movie. Not everything works, but the stuff that does makes it a necessity to watch. I wish I had been alive when it had premiered because it was something so new and weird and very controversial that I'm sure it made quite a splash. It is obvious that this influenced the work of a great many directors in the 80's.
3/4
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