Rating: 7.5/10

Directors: Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell
Studio: Variance Films

Be warned, UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US is not a standard rock doc. You’re not going to find tricked out concert footage here, glory shots of rock stars wailing away. It’s a much quieter documentary, much sadder, and much more effective. It’s a film about what could have been and what never was, a film about what happens when dreams and people die, a film about dark endings and the people left behind to make sense of it all.

Much of the film relies heavily on interviews Aites and Ewell conducted with two of the most defining members of the black metal scene (for better or worse): Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell, best known as the drummer and lyricist for black metal band Darkthrone, and Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes, the one man in one-man band Burzum (and one-time bass player in Mayhem) Vikernes is also, unfortunately, known for a different reason than just his musical talents. He’s also the man who murdered fellow Mayhem member, guitarist Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth, another huge influence on the black metal scene. Vikernes is also often pointed to as the mastermind behind an extended series of church-burnings in the early 1990s. For these crimes, Vikernes had been in prison since 1994 (he was just recently released in May). Vikernes’ crimes serve as a micro-study in the type of occurrences within the black metal scene that set it so far out of the mainstream and that made it so reviled by the public.

As Aites and Ewell’s first documentary feature, UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US crosses some filmmaking boundaries in its style, and often to great effect. Footage of Fenriz walking through an icy Norwegian forest is repeatedly shown within the film, ultimately ending up as part of a bit of a performance art piece within the film. At one point, we see Fenriz watching some of the first footage presented of Vikrenes, as he discusses some of the choices that Fenriz has made in his own career. Fenriz’s reaction is plain on his face – it’s maddening for a convicted murderer to chat about your own life and professional choices on video, but it’s also impossible to overlook the fact that the opinionated murderer is still one of the great pioneers in your chosen field. And when Vikrenes says something seemingly innocuous about how Fenriz has made his own choices, you can feel the sting of what he’s truly saying, and you can see it on Fenriz’s face.

But despite his criminal background, his murderous past, and his adherence to his own hodgepodge of Paganism, racism, and possible Nazi tendencies, Vikernes is an oddly compelling person to watch. There’s a transfixing quality about him that makes it easy to forget that when he is comparing his time in prison to being in a monastery, he is talking about a jail sentence he received for committing murder. When he discusses Aarseth’s actual killing, it is with such matter-of-factness and lack of remorse that it’s almost as if he is explaining something he saw on television or read about in a book. It’s no wonder his words transfix Fenriz, they transfix us, too. Vikrenes is our best gauge of what was “wrong” within black metal culture, what led to the worst of situations, and he talks about all of it in the way some people talk about the weather.

Much of the reason that Aites and Ewell set to make UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US was to set the record straight on so many of the misconceptions about the black metal scene – namely the public’s vaguely veiled fear of it, the reports that the musicians were simply all Satanists, that music was second to church burnings and murders. UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US does not provide an exhaustive report on all things black metal, but it addresses some of the most important events and people from the scene with raw and personal interviews. It does not seek to answer every question or provide clarification on every occurrence. It, in fact, leaves you wanting much more in the way of historical facts and timelines.

But what is so compelling and so hard to ignore is the deep undercurrent of sadness in UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US, the unmistakable sense of loss. It’s a film that will stick with you in the most unshakeable of ways, black metal fan or not.