Kill Your Idols

There is a useful directness to Kill Your Idols, a documentary shaped by Scott Crary with a firm understanding of its audience. In Kill Your Idols, Ron Albertson provides the anchor while Angus Andrew introduces a contrasting energy. Without revealing later complications, Kill Your Idols opens from this situation: NYC's no wave movement of the 1970s and the art punk revival that happened there 30 years later frame a discussion about the crisis of innovation in an age of commodified nostalgia. The resulting its 1h 15m running time feels most convincing whenever Kill Your Idols trusts behaviour more than explanation.

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The craft of Kill Your Idols is defined by clear editorial organisation, supported by clear editorial organisation rather than overwhelmed by decoration. Hunger Artist Productions gives Kill Your Idols a production framework in which patient observation can remain connected to story. Made from a United States production context, Kill Your Idols uses setting and design to clarify mood before dialogue has to explain it. The technical finish of Kill Your Idols works because image, sound and editing appear to be serving the same immediate purpose.

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Beneath its plot, Kill Your Idols is most interested in the tension between public stories and private experience. That concern becomes visible through Ron Albertson, whose choices allow Kill Your Idols to explore an idea without stopping for a speech. NYC gives the themes of Kill Your Idols a concrete dramatic form rather than leaving them abstract. The emotional value of Kill Your Idols grows whenever Scott Crary trusts the audience to connect behaviour with the larger question.

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Kill Your Idols benefits from Scott Crary being engaging in bursts but unable to maintain the same control about what each sequence needs to accomplish. Instead of making every beat equally loud, Scott Crary lets Kill Your Idols create contrast between pressure and release. Worthwhile ideas compete with an uneven structure throughout Kill Your Idols, with the strongest decisions feeling connected to character rather than display. It is still fair to say that Kill Your Idols suffers because the pace alternates between hurry and drift, but the problem remains contained.

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Ron Albertson gives Kill Your Idols its most dependable performance, finding a clear emotional intention beneath the plot. Opposite Ron Albertson, Angus Andrew brings Kill Your Idols a contrasting pace that prevents the central relationship from feeling flat. Tristan Bechet widens the ensemble of Kill Your Idols through reactions that suggest a life beyond the immediate scene. Scott Crary serves the cast of Kill Your Idols best when a look or pause is allowed to finish before the story moves on.

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At story level, Kill Your Idols turns NYC and the central character into the source of its main tension. The role played by Ron Albertson becomes the viewer's route through Kill Your Idols, especially when an important relationship begins to alter the situation. Ron Albertson gives Kill Your Idols momentum by allowing choices to create consequences instead of treating each scene as isolated information. Even when a difficult choice pushes the plot toward familiar ground, Kill Your Idols remains attentive to what that pressure means for its characters.

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Taken as a whole, Kill Your Idols is a qualified recommendation for viewers who enjoy thoughtful factual storytelling. Kill Your Idols leaves its strongest impression through clear editorial organisation, the work of Ron Albertson and a clear understanding of tone. The limitations around how the pace alternates between hurry and drift should be acknowledged, but they do not erase what Kill Your Idols does well. I would return to Kill Your Idols for its personality and its willingness to connect genre pleasure with recognisable feeling.