When Supersilent first appear at the start of this film, it looks like they're walking onto an average stage at the front of any theater. Google tells me that the Parkteatret in Oslo, Norway is a classy venue, but this could be the front of any kind of room anywhere-- there's nothing distinctive about it. The four members settle down at their instruments, trumpeter Arve Henriksen sitting square in the middle while Helge Sten and Ståle Storløkken flank him on each side; Jarle Vespestad's drumkit sits elevated at the back. This is Supersilent's live setup, and we're seeing it for the first time on DVD, entirely in black and white.
Then the lights dim, and the space is transformed. As the first piece opens, Henriksen sits bathed in shadow; in some frames we see nothing but his right ear and the glint off his trumpet. Storløkken's shots backlight him dramatically while he coaxes piercing tones from his keyboard, and though Sten also goes by the name Deathprod, he's the least ominous of the four, hunching under a spotlight as he manipulates effects and plays low notes on a knee-high keyboard. By the time Vespestad gets real camera time, his eyes are closed and he's leaning calmly into a barrage of jittery beats and analog ticks like appliances switching on and off-- which the film matches with double images, abstract and out-of-focus shots, and other cinematic devices.
7 captures a single, complete concert from August 2004, and finds more structure than their previous concert album, 5. Each piece runs from 10 minutes to half an hour, and the band usually starts with one member playing alone, before the rest of the group joins or withdraws from the improvisation until it builds to torrents of beats and rhythms like carpet tacks thrown into a windstorm. The process is even more engrossing on film, where we can watch them discover the lulls and explosions of "7.3", or hesitate, play, and then fall silent during the encore.
While their music remains non-idiomatic, Storløkken hits several 1970s reference points, adding the King Crimson-esque mellotron that opens "7.3", or harshly analog tones like something out of "Doctor Who and the Silurians". At the peak of "7.1", he even breaks out a vamp-- Supersilent's only funky moment on record. But Henriksen is even more surprising. An awesomely gentle soul by the sound of his playing, he constructs solos out of the slightest breath sounds, or sings in a powerfully frail falsetto. And yet on stage, he's never precious, beaming big smiles to the audience and the band. He's also singing more nowadays, and at the end of "7.2" he grabs the mic and belts some made-up tune, landing somewhere between a punk and a soul singer.
The cinematography and lighting define the experience with a heavy hand. (All three cameramen, including Rune Grammofon's house artist Kim Hiorthøy, and both lighting engineers get credits on a sleeve that doesn't even list the members of the band.) The stark b&w; footage turns the simple stage into a boundless empty space or a UFO landing, then pens it in, evoking a primitive, flame-licked cavern. Sometimes the gimmicks make it feel like a kooky art-school project; nonetheless, it's one of the most engrossing and well-conceived concert films of the past few years. The strobe lights, the distortions, and the occasional blinding swell of light that engulfs the band from behind, all complement the music; they illustrate its ambiguity, and its endless, shadowy corners.
