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LLIK Your Idols (2007)
In the 1970s New York City became known as a creative Mecca with the punk rock movement starting to set in. Not only that but there was a budding club scene in the city at the time as well. These two things lead to a lot of creative people meeting each other and starting new and innovative creative ideas. One of the things that came from this time period would be the idea of Cinema of Transgression. Starting in or around 1984 it was a collection of artists mainly associated with No Wave music and involved a lot of artists at the time. Some of the featured ones of this documentary are Nick Zedd, Richard Kern, Lydia Lunch and more.
Although there were more than two filmmakers involved in this movement, “LLIK Your Idols” mainly features the work of Zedd and Kern as being the most influential and important. Although this is debatable I would say, it’s clear that they were the focus of the film mainly because they were directly involved in it. Both Kern and Zedd are interviewed on the DVD and make up the majority of screen time with their interviews or clips of their films being shown. In between that we have a ton of interviewees (Richard Hell, Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth and more) that talk about Cinema of Transgression and the effects it had on those around it.
Considering before I had seen “LLIK Your Idols” I wasn’t really aware of the whole movement of Cinema of Transgression, it’s hard to think that too many people would care about this. Not that the people making the films don’t have talent (as a matter of fact I think Richard Kern is incredibly talented) it’s just that it’s hard to see these films appealing to anyone who doesn’t know the filmmakers or isn’t involved in the movement. They are not your typical films by any stretch and would definitely appeal to an artsy crowd before anyone. The most important thing to me about these filmmakers and their films are the fact that they aren’t doing it for financial gain whatsoever. Not only that but these are not the type of movies that are made to appeal to a general audience as they are transgressive, therefore they won’t appeal to everyone.
From the interviews in the movie you get the idea that a lot of these people were involved with Cinema of Transgression due to the fact that they were completely and utterly bored by everything that was being done around them. They wanted to outcast themselves from a system of filmmakers and filmmaking that they thought was basically pointless. Regardless if you feel this way or not I personally have to give it up for people who have this much passion in their work.
Although I wasn’t too thrilled with any of the films that were presented in this documentary it’s not to say that this type of cinema is all bad. Personally I think the transgressive cinema of people like Jörg Buttgereit or Mark and Colin Savage are more my thing, that’s probably because I’m more of a fan of horror films than I am art films. Sure their films have artistic backgrounds as well, but they are more suited to my film taste than for example a Nick Zedd would be.
Overall I found “LLIK Your Idols” to a rather interesting documentary were these films can be presented to you without you having to actually sit through them. Maybe it’s just me but I’d much rather watch a documentary about these people than actually see their work. It’s a decent enough documentary with enough video footage and photos to bring you back to their time period, but obviously it’s not going to mean all that much to you if you didn’t care or know about the Cinema of Transgression movement or not. But if you are into this type of cinema this is certainly the documentary for you. The filmmakers all offer great insight into their lives and work and at the very least does what a good documentary is supposed to do.....it informs.
Rating - **1/2
-Ed Demko
