Directed by Kahlil Joseph, The Reflektor Tapes is a fascinating insight into the making of Arcade Fire’s international hit album Reflektor.
This isn't a standard rockumentary – this is willful inscrutability, audacious pretension and artful interference. At its centre is Arcade Fire, the Montreal indie band whose elusiveness is half its big game.
Director Kahlil Joseph, the creator of videos for the hip-hop elite, has assembled concert, studio and carnival scenes from Jamaica to Haiti to Montreal, covering the making of the band's sprawling 2014 album Reflektor and subsequent touring. The result is a hallucinogenic scrapbook, with vague voodoo and occasional Kierkegaard. Its purpose is unfathomable; its effect, exhilarating, but only if you dig confetti and confusion and impressionism over illumination.