I know very little about indie rock band The National. One of the few things about The National that I do know is that my lack of knowledge about them makes me uncool. As in, if I knew more about The National, I would immediately be perceived as cooler. (I remember falling for this trap with The Decemberists, pretending to be "into them" in an effort to gain credibility. It didn't work and it's unlikely that I'll ever try again.)
Or, perhaps as their fame grows and becomes more and more mainstream, my disinterest in The National will create a perception that I am more cool. (I should point out: I am not cool. But sometimes I will grasp at any unlikely chance for this to be perceived as the case, even though it's a lie.) The point of all of this is: I was really dreading watching a documentary about an indie rock band that I knew very little about and had minimal interest in learning more.
On Wednesday night, Mistaken For Strangers -- the documentary about The National that I've been writing about so far -- was the opening night film of the Tribeca Film Festival. I'm going to cut to the chase: I really enjoyed Mistaken For Strangers. (Also, here's a good example about me not being cool: I just used the phrase "cut to the chase.") What I wasn't expecting was that The National had about the same small interest in being in this documentary as I had in watching it. Immediately, I felt a connection with The National.
Mistaken For Strangers was directed by Tom Berninger, who is the younger brother of The National's lead singer, Matt Berninger. Tom follows the band on tour, documenting the long grind of being on the road. (The kind of "grind" I refer to has been documented in both Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous and the song "Faithfully" by Journey.) The problem is, this is not the reason why Tom is on tour with the band. Matt, as a favor to his little brother, invited Tom to join the band on tour as a roadie, not a filmmaker. The fact that Tom is filming the band makes the band visibly annoyed. I really liked The National at this point.
Tom often films without permission and, when he does have permission, is usually asking the band to say scripted lines like "The National belongs to everyone" for the sake of drama. Tom also alternated between asking the band stupid questions ("What drugs have you done?") and fascinating ones ("When you're onstage, do you bring your wallet?").
Basically, the initial intent of the documentary is a disaster. Since it's presented as a disaster, however -- with us, the audience, watching the disaster unfold -- it becomes brilliant.
I have no idea how a fan of The National will view this movie. If I were a fan, I could envision wanting to watch an esoteric deconstruction of the band. I mean, a documentary that really gets into the heart of The National and finds out what makes them so successful. This is not that type of documentary. It didn't matter that the band was The National. This could have been a documentary on the band House of Pain (best known for their 1992 song "Jump Around") and it wouldn't have made much of a difference assuming that (A) the lead singer of House of Pain, Everlast, had a slightly bumbling younger brother trying to film the band on tour and (B) House of Pain still existed.
I conducted a poll a few people after the screening -- who identified themselves as fans of The National -- who all claimed to have immensely enjoyed Mistaken For Strangers. Though, these same people all knew that they'd be seeing The National perform live right after the screening ended. Unfortunately, most fans of The National who see this movie will not have that same luxury, so I'm not convinced that these are 100 percent trustworthy opinions.
Your enjoyment of Mistaken For Strangers will have nothing to do with your knowledge of The National. I would almost go as far to say that it might work better for non-fans and casual fans than it even does for hardcore fans. For people like me, though, the film does present enough information about the band to sustain a conversation -- maybe even enough to sustain a brief perception of cool. (But not really.)
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
