No Distance Left to Run (2010) Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern

A documentary on Blur...  let's be honest, doing a documentary on a band like Blur, getting back together is a great idea, and there's almost no way of it not working, because your subject is great on itself.  If you actually manage to do something that doesn't work, you can still count on the documentary being a hit within the band's fans, so there's almost no way of getting it wrong.



The truth is, I'm not quite sure how you're supposed to approach this kind of movies.  The only thing I can surely say is that I really enjoyed this work.  I loved the way the band members opened to the directors and were not afraid to show their deeper selves in front of the camera.

I liked the structure given to it, how it begins with images of the band reuniting at the studio and the voice in off of Graham confessing how much he had missed Damon, and how little he had been able to acknowledge it on the past few years.  Of course, on that moment I wasn't able to recognize who was talking and about who, since names are left unspoken, but I was able to connect with that feeling of nostalgia for a lost friend, for a past life.   I think that voice in off sets the mood in which the rest of the documentary will unfold itself, because more than simply talking about a huge British band, it talks about friendship and life and how sometimes things don't work, about the complexity of relationships and the way people decide to go through different paths.

Looking at them reminiscence in front the camera, cutting to scenes from when they were young and on top of the world, and then watching them perform in present time.  Evidently that type of structure is going to give a nostalgic/idyllic atmosphere to the whole documentary, and it is going to connect to our past on that same way, so the effect can only strengthen itself, since we are no longer missing Blur, but in fact we are missing the times when we used to sing Blur's songs, with all that that represents: a specific moment in time, in our lives, in our youth... when we, as well, felt on top of the world.


It's a great music documentary because it connects with you and it moves you and you get out of the theater wishing you had been more involved with their music,  wishing you could feel part of the portrayed experience.  It makes you want to grasp to that piece of time and just linger... just forget about right now and live in the memory of the past.