You’re not always sure what you’re going to get when you listen to a song by The National for the first time. It may start out like a gentle lullaby, then transition into an angry seizure of chaotic energy. Or it could murmur along in quiet intensity building slowly but never reaching a climax, hinting at deeper meanings through seemingly disjointed words and phrases.
That’s one of the things I love about the band -- the unpredictable nature of their music and their refusal to be pinned down or pigeonholed as a particular sound or category.
The new documentary “Mistaken for Strangers” had a similar effect on my when I watched it last week at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto. Filmed and directed by Tom Berninger, the brother of lead singer Matt Berninger, the film starts out in one chaotic, messy direction before take an abrupt 180-degree turn – which is when it really gets interesting.
Tom Berninger is nine years younger than his older brother Matt, and the two couldn’t be more different from one another. Matt is tall, athletic looking and handsome, but also dark, brooding, artsy and mysterious.
You get the feeling he could have just as easily been a college quarterback or an investment banker, rather than the lead singer of one of the most successful indie bands in America.
Tom isn’t like that at all. He’s nearly 30, somewhat short, chubby, lives at home with his parents, has no discernable job or career path and is a self-described metal head with little time for indie rock.
The story begins when Tom calls Matt and asks him to come on tour with the band – something he’s never done before. He’s not being asked to come and party with the guys though, he’s been hired as part of the crew, tasked with important responsibilities before and after each show.
Of course, he agrees, but decides on his own that he’s also going to make a documentary about the band while he’s on the road.
I expected a documentary about The National. But it quickly became apparent that the film was going in a different direction. Tom often shot footage of himself, talking about himself, or about his relationship with his brother.
During interviews with the other band members, he’d often ramble on in long soliloquies that never really ended in a question, but were more a commentary about himself or Matt.
One of the other band members even says during one such interview that he’s “perplexed” as to why he was asked to be in the film when all the questions seem to be about Matt.
But the time and effort Tom puts into the film, as well as his general apparent lack of seriousness about the job he was hired to do, quickly becomes a problem.
He films numerous terse conversations with the tour manager, who warns him his job is in jeopardy. In one scene Matt berates him because the tour bus left town and was an hour away when someone realized Tom wasn’t with them, and had instead stayed drinking in a pub when everyone else left.
Tom gets fired six months into the yearlong tour.
And this is where the film gets interesting. He returns home to his parents’ house, sinks into depression and appears to realize that an opportunity has been squandered.
But that changes when the tour ends and Matt and his wife Carin Besser invite Tom to come to New York, to stay with them and finish the film – with Carin’s help.
From there, the story shifts from being a narcissistic self-exploration to a story about brotherhood, love and patience and as Tom described at the Hot Docs opening, the ability to turn something you think is “shit,” into something good.
There’s a key moment when one of the band members is describing how The National found their place, and their success, when they learned how to take their own self-doubts, fears and misgivings and inject them into their songs. That’s when people began to connect to their music and resonate with their messages, he explains.
And that message seemed to hit home for Tom, who appeared to realize that in order for the film to work, he had to acknowledge his own failures and weaknesses too.
And when he finally begins to do that, the story goes from a generic road-trip/band doc to something deeper – it becomes an honest, genuine story that resonates with anyone who has ever struggled to relate to a sibling or questioned their own path in life.
Great film. One of the highlights was the fact that both Matt and Tom, as well as Carin, were on hand at the Hot Docs opening to discuss the movie and answer questions from the audience. See it if you can.
