Music is always a big part of the program at Hot Docs, even though it may seem like every conceivable musical legend and cult hero or heroine has gotten the cinematic treatment by now. I mean, if Wild Man Fischer, Scott Walker and Klaus Nomi can have their own docs, surely we’re overdue for a film about Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes. Until then, here are three to see and hear:
Wilco: Ashes of American Flags ****
88 min; May 8, 9:15pm, Bloor Cinema; May 9, 4:30pm, The Royal.
Co-directed by Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty, this exceptionally elegant tour doc captures Jeff Tweedy and his cohorts in far healthier form than when they were in 2002’s I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. That’s another indication of how much the presence of guitarist Nels Cline and percussionist Glenn Kotche has raised Wilco’s game, especially as a live act — songs that seemed a touch stilted on Sky Blue Sky or A Ghost Is Born blaze into life in Canty and Christoph Green’s superlative high-def footage.
Vashti Bunyan: From Here to Before ****
89 min; May 2, 4pm & May 4, 3:45pm, Cumberland 3.
Adem and Devendra Banhart are full of effusive praise for the English folkie who’s attained a very belated Nick Drake–like celebrity in recent years. But Bunyan herself is the best narrator for her mesmerizing tale of missed opportunity and self-discovery in the ’60s. Filmmaker Kieran Evans joins her as she retraces the journey she took across Britain — by horse and cart, no less. It’s a time she preserved in song on 1970’s Just Another Diamond Day before disappearing from the music business for three decades.
Soulwax: Part of the Weekend Never Dies ***
69 min; May 3, midnight, Bloor Cinema; May 10, 9:30pm, Royal.
The party people are out in full force in Soam Farahmand’s suitably high-energy portrait of the Belgian punk-funksters who also do duty as 2ManyDJs. The film’s choppy editing fits perfectly with the Belgians’ mash-up-friendly aesthetic, though the best lines come not from the Soulwax braintrust of David and Stephen Dewaele but pals like LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, who pithily summarizes Soulwax’s appeal when he describes their music as “cocaine… without the big ideas.”