PAVEMENTS -- A Chaotic and Ambitious Documentary About Indie Rock Legends

Review by Camden Ferrell

Spending the last few years mostly directing music videos, Alex Ross Perry hasn’t made a solo feature since his 2018 film Her Smell. His triumphant return to the big screen is a perplexing movie about an equally perplexing band, and it’s a project that is unexpected but absolutely catered to his abilities as a filmmaker. Pavements is a borderline experimental documentary about the legendary indie band Pavement. It’s a creative and endlessly entertaining effort that shines a light on the band’s legacy while also intentionally clouding their history.
 
This movie combines aspects of traditional documentary filmmaking with elements of musical biopics to tell the story of Pavement. It follows the band as they prepare for a new set of concerts, the actors who are portraying the band in a biopic, a museum exhibition for the band, and the production of a stage musical based on the band’s music. If this sounds like a lot, it’s because it is. However, among all of this chaos, Perry is able to find something beautiful and lost that he attempts to dig out for the world to see.
 
Written by Perry, I couldn’t begin to imagine how one would craft this final product. From the initial moments of the film, it’s clear that it is an ambitious film that also still feels analogous to what the band stood for. The way he blends different styles of filmmaking while also imbuing it with biting wit and irony is impressive. He’s able to do exactly what a Pavement movie requires, and the final product is charming, eccentric, occasionally funny, and energetic.

The members of the band like Stephen Malkmus seem fully game for what the movie is aiming for, and it’s a real-world connection that allows this movie to still feel somewhat grounded amidst its madness. I found that the biopic segments benefit greatly from the meta-approach of actors like Joe Keery, Nat Wolff, and Jason Schwartzman to name a few, and it’s one of the many things that allow this movie to feel so unique. Everyone involved in this product feels like they’re all in on some joke the audience doesn’t know, and it works to strange effect.
 
While I am impressed with how this was actually pulled off in the end, it doesn’t necessarily forgive the fact that even the movie can feel a bit lost in its own craziness at times. Sometimes the lack of precise cohesion is an artistic choice, but sometimes it’s a flaw. Despite that, I believe we are lucky that such a movie exists especially as a fan of Pavement, and Perry has done what many other filmmakers likely couldn’t with his first feature in years.
 
Pavements is a must-watch movie for fans of the band, and it might also prove to be entertaining for novices too. It’s an ambitious piece of documentary (this term is being used loosely) filmmaking that pokes fun at itself while also still being an earnest piece of media. It’s not the movie we expected for Pavement, but it’s the one we deserve, and we should be so lucky that it exists.
 
Pavements is in select theaters now with a wide release on June 6.
 
Rating: 4/5