Bradley Beesley:
The Fearless Freaks (USA, 2005)
95 min - DVD. English.
The Flaming Lips is a band you'd be hard pushed to hate. Going to one of their gigs is like having been invited to the birthday party you always dreamed of as a kid: the stage is filled with fluffy animals and dancing suns, it's raining confetti, and there you see the ringmaster in charge of this all, the vocalist Wayne Coone, flying by inside his gigantic balloon.
Bradley Beesley has in his documentary managed to capture the very essence of The Flaming Lips: the childish enthusiasm, the irresistible urge to go where no one has ventured before, the disarming humanity and the heart as big as the Empire State Building. But in between all the parties and positivity, the film also touches on the darker side of the band – nevertheless, the drug problems and the less-than-protected adolescent ages of the members are dealt with honesty and discrepancy.
The result is an intimate account of how a bunch of freakish teens in love with rock'n'roll eventually became the No. 1 official cult band in the USA. Beesley's load of work can only be admired, as he put the film together out of hundreds of hours of footage he had filmed during the period of over ten years that he spent on the magic ride with The Flaming Lips.
