With To the End, Blur have now released well over double the minutes of documentary film about their sporadic post-2009 reunion (296) than they have new studio music (113, rounded up). 2010’s No Distance Left to Run chronicled their pre-break-up history, reconciliation, and journey towards two momentous headline shows at Glastonbury and Hyde Park. 2015’s New World Towers documented the spontaneous creation of their first reunion album, The Magic Whip, and its accompanying tour. To the End splits the difference by covering both the unplanned creation of their second reunion album, The Ballad of Darren, and journey towards two giant headline shows at Wembley Stadium.
Even for a lifelong Blur fan – somebody whose personal and musical trajectories were fundamentally altered by stumbling upon a compilation DVD of their music videos at age eight – it’s hard to escape the whiff of cynicism about it all. Every band-approved documentary functions in some way as brand management, but the best still find ways to appeal to the non-faithful or provide new insight into the music and people. They certainly don’t risk tinging the accompanying eras with a retroactive insincerity like the Blur documentary machine feels on the verge of doing. Is this now a vital part of their process? The only way to force Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James, and Dave Rowntree to get along for an extended period is with the presence of a camera crew?
Even away from that reading, there’s not a lot to To the End, especially for anybody who has seen the vastly superior and more revealing No Distance Left to Run. Director Toby L, admittedly limited by the band’s tour bookings, borrows that film’s structure of following Blur through initial rehearsals and warm-up dates in towns and locations vital to their early legacy in vignette form before honing in on the big show. Some of these vignettes are mildly entertaining or moving, such as Albarn and Coxon revisiting the Colchester school where they first formed a band and whose music room is now named after them. Yet there’s little gleaned which hasn’t already been covered elsewhere.
For non-fans, meanwhile, everybody seems afraid of airing any potential drama. Whenever the film begins hinting at some semblance of conflict or danger – Albarn using Darren to process a devastating break-up, recovering alcoholic James lapsing back into self-destructive partying on tour, Rowntree injuring his knee a week before Wembley – members clam up or L and editor Danny Abel just drop the subject. There are brief gestures towards the continued political relevance of Blur’s classic material, a self-awareness of each band member’s age (they’re all pushing 60), and a spoken belief that this represents “the start of something new” which rings morbidly funny given Albarn’s band-ending comments at Coachella last April. But no angle is explored deeply enough to provide a firm emotional centre.
By the end, L and Abel outright reuse footage from earlier in the movie, flailing for a sense of narrative closure. To the End isn’t unentertaining – Albarn in particular was born to be a silly gremlin in front of a camera – but it never adequately justifies its existence even as brand maintenance. The upcoming Wembley concert film, whose footage here functions as a hastily-cut trailer for the main event, will likely function as a more worthy epitaph.
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ANTICIPATION.
Entertain Me. 3
ENJOYMENT.
M.O.R. 2
IN RETROSPECT.
There Are Too Many of Us. 2
Directed by
Toby L
Starring
N/A
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