Review of Lords of Chaos (2018) by Henry B — 11 Nov 2018

First things first: Jonas Akerlund didn't make this movie for the black metal community. He couldn't care less about their negative reviews. So if you are a purist, go cry him a river and clean your black and white paint from the face while at it.

Akerlund has some authority for it. A drummer of the band Bathory for a couple of years, the Swede director left the black metal music scene when the criminal acts outside the music began to become "very serious".

And that's what "Lords of Chaos" is all about. Raw and violent, sometimes this dramatic biopic of Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth seems borrowed from the horror genre.

But in general, Akerlund treats the tragic story of the Mayhem guitarist with great, dark self-deprecating humor, using the same impudence and light attitude towards life as the protagonists. It's a kind of ironic, vindictive narrative that works fantastically.

The criticism about the true intentions behind the 90's Norwegian black metal criminal actions is deliciously corrosive. But Akerlund's merit is even greater: At times, the characters are perceived as idiotic posers who only seek attention and an extreme image, but somehow, they never stop having layers or a sense of threat. The audience even manages to empathize with a couple of them.

There is a strategically light treatment of the tragedies, which allows the debate about how many doses of true ideology, desire for attention and serious social and mental imbalances created these incidents.

It's also a portrait of a young and idle sector of an incredibly privileged society like the Norwegian. A sector that, faced with the immovable stability of their lives, ended up seeking refuge in the most controversial elements that they could find, such as Satanism, racism, and homophobia.

Beyond probably being detested by fans of Varg Vikernes, this film is an interesting hybrid of genres. And at several times, a very funny and extreme experience.