Film Reviews

Oasis & Their "Look Back In Anger"

It explains absolutely nothing yet tells you everything.

Hi there. Are you going to see the Oasis movie? Great, keep reading. If you don't have plans, please go fix that and then come back. No, watching it at home on demand will not suffice.

Now that that's sorted, onto the business at hand.

I think that Jeff Stein's The Kids Are Alright remains the best rock documentary ever made. I love it because it explains absolutely nothing yet tells you everything you need to know about the Who, and you have the opportunity to walk out of the theater a changed human being, completely understanding the band. I walked out after seeing it at age 15 because I was curious and it changed my life. TKAA's lack of narrative is a deliberate choice, and its absence creates this environment of defiance that will either bring you in or repel you because it is also the ethos of the band. It is genius. (Some day I will absolutely write about this film in more depth.)

This is how I feel about this Oasis film. It explains absolutely nothing yet tells you everything, and in doing so, embraces the same kind of rebellious defiance that was Oasis' hallmark. The film is about the reunion and the ensuing tour and about the band's fans in multiple countries and continents. It does not tell you who the main characters are or why they are on a soundstage rehearsing or who's in charge or who they're waiting for and why they are waiting for them. It doesn't even tell you what city or country you're in. You are left to sort through Mancunian accents – or not.

I did not go to this reunion tour. I saw Oasis twice in the earlier days; once was at one of those radio station Christmas concerts where they played two songs, and the next one was the following year when they came through and headlined the same inferior venue (Mercer Arena in Seattle). Like, when I first heard about the Bros. Gallagher I felt like all my years of training as a teenage/20s fan of the British Invasion and my nascent Anglophilia as a result made me uniquely equipped to grok what was going on with them very quickly, and I appreciated the tunes, as Liam would say, but it wasn't something that had indelible staying power for me personally.

I also knew that if I wanted to see the reunion I was going to have to get myself to one of the first few shows because there was zero guarantee that the two of them were going to be able to coexist. It's the same reason I flew to Toronto to see the reunited Replacements at their first show of that experiment despite it being at a festival, because I knew better. This is because I did not go to see the reconstituted Velvet Underground early in that outing despite, again, knowing my fucking history, and as a result I never got to see Sterling Morrison play guitar.

This Oasis reunion wasn't for me, but I was thrilled for everyone who was excited about it. But this film is making me doubt that decision ever so slightly. I cried on and off through the whole thing but everyone in this movie cries at some point. The audience cries, men cry, Noel cries, it's incredibly emotional and tender and that is not what you are probably expecting from a movie about Oasis.

I'm not using the word 'documentary' because that to me requires the presence of more structure, more narrative, more direction. There is all of that present, but you have to pay attention and you have to be willing to be a participant, to engage in this entire event. That's why you have to go to a theater. This is the first rock and roll movie I've seen recently where I felt that the volume was adequate. The seats shook with the drums and they needed to do that. They are trying to bring you into the stadium but they're not doing that with cameras on wires hung everywhere or endless drone shots or closeups of the guitar solo.

This is the first music film I've ever seen where the director successfully, accurately and affectionately conveys that feeling of being a fan at the front of a queue going into a stadium for a big show: the excitement, the nerves, the elation, the disbelief, the energy. It's either previously been captured like a nature documentary: "Look at the native crazies sprinting for the rail, ha ha ha" or it's been from some position of superiority, the person directing the film is somehow above all of that, they are more evolved than someone who would queue for days in order to lean on a rail with thousands of people standing behind them. I still cannot get over how even-keeled all of this was while also still making your heart race while you watch these folks in Cardiff get to their spots. It's fucking brilliant. It's so refreshing.

This is one of the many reasons why you need to go see it, because if you care about music enough to be on this web site reading these essays then you will see yourself in this film over and over again, whether or not you give a fuck about Oasis. It will be a relief to finally watch a film about music where the fans are treated with the utmost respect, dignity and obvious affection. There'd be no band without an audience and no concerts without an audience and yet, time and time again, all I've watched is fans being treated like some kind of exotic animal or just dripping with obvious condescension.

The other element of the film that is brilliant is how it illustrates the band's global impact. There are stories about fans in Korea and Brazil and Argentina as well as the UK. The US gets mentioned towards the end of the film with a shot of Soldier Field (and I also think one in LA) but most of this film is about the rest of the world. It is also about Manchester. It has to be about Manchester, because these are kids from a council estate in Manchester.

And it isn't just about the crowd inside the stadium, it shows the parties and the singing and the dancing in the streets and in the parks adjacent, and it's ebullient and electric.

[Also, can we talk about Oasis' branding for a second? That logo, especially when you see it positioned at the top of the rigging center stage. It's indelible, one for the ages.]

There's a fair amount of interview footage shot for this film of Liam and Noel talking, way more than I anticipated, and it's unintentionally hilarious because they're trying to understand why their audience feels this way and how they didn't realize how overwhelming it would be to watch that reaction – that they would get that level of emotion – and watching them you realize that it's just one of those amazing rock and roll mysteries, that these people decided to start a band and they didn't know they harbored magical powers and they don't understand because it's not something that can be comprehended by facts and reasoning.

There are very few music films that actually capture the essence of a band where you could sit someone down and tell them, "Watch this and you'll get it." Look Back In Anger is a very rare exception. It should be the gold standard moving forward. Good luck.

I have started this new feature here called Quarter Notes which are meant to replace me wanting to write some thoughts about a show or a record or a book but not enough for a full review. In the past I would have written something on Instagram but I don't want to give Meta my content so I'm going to do it here instead. But I am not sending out notifications for it because I lose subscribers every time I send an email - but I do not want to be one of those annoying newsletter people who email you when you unsubscribe asking why (because I hate it when that happens). If you have thoughts about this, please hit reply and let me know!

Other things I have written since the last time I did this: