Amerika

Sometime in the early 2000s, the media discovered black and death metal and thought they were cute, like retarded kids playing the kazoo, and so we got a spate of really retarded stuff with a tongue-in-cheek mockery of metal behind it all. Effete hipster jivel ike Dethklok is there to make fun of us.

In a different vein, Heavy Trip tries to make a metal movie which celebrates the spirit of the genre using the old standard of “the journey is better than the destination,” modified appropriately. It covers the adventures of Impaled Rektum as its members try to gain the confidence to become what they are.

Like much of Finnish cinema, it focuses on parallel details and weirdness without becoming Austin-style “quirky” or self-consciously odd. While it is a comedy, it also contains a glimpse of the teenage metalhead journey from being uncertain to honing a force of Will, and along the way it mocks everything holy and unholy alike in an absurdist parable.

Tags: finland, movie