Pink Floyd The Wall (1982)
Directed By: Alan Parker
The Prologue
It might seem a bit odd for me to admit that to spite being drug free, my favorite band is, Pink Floyd. And one of my all-time favorite albums is, The Wall. So in 1982 the band’s creative force behind The Wall, Roger Waters, went forth in taking part in making the classic concept album into a real live action movie. The results are ever bit as weird as any Pink Floyd album. It also has became a major cult classic to the masses of movie lovers and music lovers alike.
The Movie
The movie tells the story of rock singer “Pink” who is sitting in his hotel room in Los Angeles, burnt out from the music business and only able to perform on stage with the help of drugs. Based on the 1979 double album “The Wall” by Pink Floyd, the film begins in Pink’s youth where he is crushed by the love of his mother. Several years later he is punished by the teachers in school because he is starting to write poems. Slowly he begins to build a wall around himself to be protected from the world outside. The film also inserts some classic animation scenes.
If you’ve ever heard the album of the same name, you know how this thing goes. So it’s best to just focus on the content of the movie. And rest a sure the content is some of the weirdest, yet most creative 95 minutes of content you’ll ever see. Bob Geldof in our leading role of Pink seems to “get” the subject. Even if perhaps it wasn’t exactly what Roger Waters wanted, I think it works really well. I don’t think acting is an issue at all in this movie. We get memorable performances from the characters of Pink, The School Teacher, The Groupie (Jenny Wright of Near Dark fame), and so on and so forth. All these things come together to make one of the more haunting and dark films of the 80s.
Of course we got to mention the animated scenes. These scenes are among the film’s best moments. At times they are even mixed with the live action stuff. The lyrics of the songs are put to visuals in some very cryptic and symbolic ways. Ways that are sure to leave a lasting impression, even if it’s your first time seeing the movie. There is just timeless stuff here, be it the screaming face from the wall or the “flowers” that everyone seems to want to talk about. But the memorable scenes aren’t just limited to the animation. We have some very cool live action scenes and shots as well.
If there is one negative to the film, it’s the fact that it’s just soo darn weird that I believe a few people just won’t “get it”. That could be an issue, especially in the second half when things get even more crazy. The music is classic, but the visuals are at times a little hard to swallow or follow if you’re not a big time Pink Floyd fan. Outside of that we don’t have much to hate on here. It’s a classic film for a classic album and I can’t promise you will like it, but I do think you should check it out at least once.
The Conclusion
I really don’t get why we’ve yet to see this classic on Blu-ray. I would imagine the audio would be the selling point of that. There have been a zillion CD releases of the album, but only two DVDs. And I think we’ve yet to see a real Ultimate Edition for this and Blu-ray could help bring that in. If I had my way, I’d say put out a Blu-ray/DVD set with the album along with it.
The Rating (8/10)
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