Cert – 12, Run-time – 1 hour 54 minutes, Directors – James Cameron, Billie Eilish
Concert film of Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft tour, featuring interviews with Eilish about who she wants to be as an artist and behind the scenes details during the gig.
Billie Eilish’s music may generally not be for me, but I understand that it is for many people. I know that even more now having seen the concert film of her Hit Me Hard And Soft tour which appears to be less about Eilish and more about the audience. The camera is almost fascinated by them, giving us plenty of close-ups and glides across the audience members crying and singing along during the gig. During one particular ballad I could understand the camera showing the emotional connection of fans, many with tears running down their faces, but for most of the tracks I questioned the reason and effect. Additionally, on a number of occasions the sound mix appears to make them louder than the artist that they, and those in the cinema, have paid to see.
The audience seems to be one of James Cameron’s biggest interests here, co-directing with Eilish who makes her want for her creative vision to come through in her gigs clear in a brief pre-show conversation with Cameron. She says how the lighting of each song is meant to be specific to mood and theme, what colour matches what song? Cameron captures an individual nature to each song by treating each song as its own moment. While this eases the more the concert goes on, for the first few tracks it feels as if the songs, even when performed one after the other, are very separate. The decision to treat them as scenes rather than songs that flow somewhat backfires.
Yet, there’s no denying that technically there are a good number of things to like about how things have been captured and come across on the big screen. The 3D – the only format in which the film seems to be available in for its cinema release – is utterly useless, but what brings us in to the concert isn’t the insistence on placing us in the screaming audience, but the behind the scenes details. The way the camera goes into the pits with the musicians and backing singers – at one point Eilish runs amongst them with a handheld camera – or seeing how she arrives to the stage crouched in a box for equipment, or takes a quick break below during a song or interlude. A simple wave effect created on the edge of the stage as Eilish runs around it during one song struck me as quite cool. It’s these moments which somehow capture the best sense of energy in the room – a want for a good kind of sensory overload is mentioned but doesn’t quite come across in the cinema where you can feel the control of the editing and view of each song.
But, there’s no denying that as a concert film Hit Me Hard And Soft is perfectly fine. As with most concert films it does largely come down to your relationship with the artist and their music, there are glimpses of interviews with Eilish before and after the concert and although brief there are one or two interesting details in them. The bulk of the film, once past a stop-start nature between songs and interviews or behind the scenes details which begin to be better woven in as things go on (as is the case with much of the film), is taken up by the songs.
For fans, there’s almost certainly a more than worthwhile time when it comes to seeing the film, as it is for the gig. As for those outside of Eilish’s music there’s still plenty to like beyond just technical aspects as there is a mildly rumbling energy to keep things moving, alongside likable behind the scenes glimpses and details during the gig itself. But, you may not feel a full part of the audience, no matter how present, sometimes overly so, they may be in the film.
Once things even out, dropping treating the songs like scenes and flowing between them better, Hit Me Hard And Soft is a solid concert film with some fun behind the scenes details during the gig. Although for outsiders there can sometimes feel a disconnecting visual and audible focus on the audience over the work on stage.
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