Until The Light Takes Us

"I was surprised by how full the theater was when I got there about ten minutes before showtime. Always nice to see that kind of support in the middle of the day, especially when you're talking about a documentary about the black metal movement in Norway, hardly the sort of marquee title that normally sells out at a festival... UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US is my favorite kind of documentary, squarely focused on someone instead of something. It's not enough to just say that your film is about something as broadly defined as Norway's black metal scene. That's not a story. That's not compelling. It's a backdrop at best. Wisely, co-directors Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell chose to focus on a few particular players in the scene, using their stories to paint the larger picture. It's incredibly effective, and there's real control in the way they parcel out information at just the right moment for maximum effect." - Ain't It Cool News

"As richly compelling and artfully shot as rock docs get, Until the Light Takes Us goes beyond charting black metal's underpinnings and the tabloid sensationalism of its fiery saga. Through smartly constructed reveals and blunt interviews that include many vulnerable moments, Ewell and Aites investigate the entanglement of art, terrorism, and the media that tried to define both." - LA Weekly (Critic's Pick)

"I’d never heard of Norwegian black metal, which flourished in the early 1990s, but that didn’t prevent me from becoming engrossed in — and highly disturbed by — the bizarre, violent stories of some of the participants of that musical scene as presented in Until the Light Takes Us. There are murders...[spoiler removed]...suicides, rabid nationalism, anti-Judeo-Christian diatribes, anti-Americanism, church burnings, media sensationalism, faux satanism, and, in my view, the pervasive sensation that we live in a very, very sick world — one in which violence and hatred are perceived as not only valid but also as desirable manifestations of dissent." - Andre Soares, Alternative Film Guide

"This documentary is an excellent piece of minimalist but effective storytelling, much like the music that inspired it. If you seek the simple truths hidden behind the headlines, this film will lead you to them." - The Left Hand Path

This riveting documentary is not a music movie but a clear-sighted investigation into the murky subculture of Norwegian black metal music, whose history, though distorted and sensationalized by the press, is still pretty sensational even in the undistorted version, strewn with the ashes of torched churches and the blood of murder and suicide victims. As the filmmakers note, black metal “blurs the line between music, art, activism and terror...there’s really no other art or music or ideological movement like it.” Focusing on three figures--self-destructive pioneer Dead (of the group Mayhem), convicted murderer Varg Vikernes (of Burzum), and the relatively moderate Gylve Nagell (of Darkthrone)--UNTIL THE LIGHT draws a deeply, disturbingly ambivalent portrait of a contradictory movement that is too complex either to endorse or to dismiss. In English and Norwegian with English subtitles. - Blah+Blah+Blog