Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
I’m not completely sure I was aware of the existence of this film, a companion piece of sorts to Pink Floyd’s 1979 album, until a couple of weeks back when the Internet’s least correct critic, Doug “Nostalgia Critic” Walker released an elaborate parody slash review that was roundly harangued for a complete misreading of the concepts and themes of the film. I was, I suppose, therefore kind of expecting The Wall to be a difficult and challenging work full of obscure symbolism and oblique messaging, whereas in retrospect I should have leant on what I knew to be true and proven many times over, namely that the Nostalgia Critic is an idiot.
Anyway, curiosity must be sated, cats be damned, so I sat me down to The Wall and it’s certainly a thing that I have now watched. I suppose you’re expecting a plot recap, but it’s not really that sort of film. It, in a lot of way, feels more like you are sitting in on a meandering psychoanalytical session of Roger Waters, whose traumas, attitudes and fears formed the basis of the album and now this, I suppose, adaptation of the album.
There’s three main threads, the modern day isolation of a rockstar from society and humanity, women in particular, inhabited here by a typically dishevelled Bob Geldof as Pink, a look at the early childhood that got him there, including the trauma of his father being killed during the war and critiques of society and the education system, and a weird fantasy sequence where Pink reimagines himself as a fascist dictator in front of rabid crowds, which is hard to read as much other than egotism run amok. Your music ain’t that compelling, Waters.
I suppose the question that kept me engaged throughout The Wall is simply this, who is this for? It’s not, after all, something that really passes muster as a film, in the dramatic sense. There’s little through line between the themes that are thrown out, and leaning on the album tracks to provide all the context of to the visuals may perhaps be intended as a more poetic way of storytelling, but it’s just ended up not telling much of a story.
So, perhaps it’s best left for the Pink Floyd fans, and as a largely Pink Floyd indifferent, this ain’t really for me. Even so, I can’t imagine it’s something that fans would choose to watch over listening to the album, except maybe once as an idle curiosity. Now, to be scrupulously fair, while overall I’m not recommending that anyone not already predisposed to liking this sort of thing seek it out, I did not hate my time with The Wall. While it doesn’t hang together at all as a film, a lot of the production design is very good, and as is commonly pointed out, the animated sequences are very well executed.
It’s just a shame that it is so frequently deployed in ways that are only just barely symbolic, to the point that they’re almost literal. It’s nice to see that it’s a script that’s fully Garth Merenghi approved, no cowardly subtext here, and in a way I appreciate the honesty on display here – Waters is not glamorising or softening his character flaws and weird attitudes, and I suppose recognition is the first step to changing them. What it isn’t, is a compelling reason for this to exist as an artefact.
Certainly not something I recommend or particularly enjoyed, but as a curiosity piece I suppose it holds some small value.