When queer, genre-bending hip hop artist Lil Nas When the music download service emerged, he converted the physical format to digital. Since then, music has been waiting for a totally viral music star. In 2019, “Old Town Road” and “Panini” became huge hits. But the pandemic made it impossible to travel through those worms. So, amid lockdowns, masking, and a vaccine, the rapper released his debut album “Montero,” spawning even more chart-topping singles. In fact, for three years, Lil Nas
“Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero,” a sparsely composed, hagiographic concert documentary, follows the artist on his debut tour. Directors Carlos López Estrada (“Blindspotting”) and Zac Manuel (“Descendant”) would be expected to focus on the nerves the rapper must feel when becoming a live act and the responsibility and journey he experiences as a man gay black in a hypermasculine world. gender. While the film attempts to cover those topics, the result is simply broad and rarely reveals any further details about Lil Nas Tour.
Directors: Carlos López Estrada, Zac Manuel
Stars; Trevon Anderson, Sean Bankhead, Bernard Bell
That doesn't mean the documentary is a total missed opportunity. We witness the effort and artistry required for the rapper to put on this show. These brief behind-the-scenes sequences will probably delight fans of him. Take for example how, towards the beginning, we see Lil Nas X performing in front of a sold-out crowd, only for a match cut to reveal an empty auditorium during the artist's grueling rehearsal. López and Manuel's documentary is full of these moments and shows Lil Nas X's work ethic and creative ideas. These are the kind of moments we expect in a movie of this type. The problem with this concert documentary, however, is that the unexpected never happens.
Rather, “Viva Montero” refers to transformation. It mostly happens in the very rigors of a tour: we start on day zero, on the eve of their first concert in Detroit in 2022, and we go through New York City, their home state of Georgia, Los Angeles and finally San Francisco. For the most part, these stops blend into one with few notable events. The only exception is when Lil Nas X visits Boston; A group of protesters accuse the rapper of corrupting youth with his queerness. The rapper trolls them, sending a pineapple pizza to his picket line and trolling TikTok about how he found one of the homophobic men cute. In a narrative about a viral music star, it's surprising that the filmmakers didn't do more to match his aesthetic with the online world their subject inhabits.
The film balances this act of transformation with Lil Nas ”. The performances of these tunes are vigorously filmed by Manuel and Pablo Berrón, whose intimate camera offers the most immersive component of the documentary, photographing the music star in mythical proportions on stage and the fiery sensuality of himself and the dancers choreographed that occupy a rotating set of staging (Afrofuturist influences and French Renaissance settings).
If only the rest of the movie dived that deep. Sure, some of the interviews are conducted while shirtless Lil Nas X relaxes under a white sheet, but an open environment is not the same as openness. Instead, the artist's fascinating personality, driven by an insatiable wit, disguises the small glimpse we are given of him: his likes and dislikes, likes and loves, made even more distant by his charming brand of humor. he. The main exception to that shortcoming comes when the rapper shares his insecurities with his faith and whether his family is truly accepting of him or simply placating him with a meal ticket. It's that kind of interrogation of stardom, particularly being a black gay man in a deeply religious household, that you wish permeated the rest of the documentary.
The filmmakers do their best to fill in those gaps, using a clichéd butterfly metaphor to further explain the artistic and personal transformation Lil Nas X is undergoing as a live act and pop culture icon.
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