Don’t Think About The Chemical Brothers, Watch Them

By Alif Omar Mahfix  •  in News
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Here’s something to sate your Chemical Brothers fix pre-their DJ set at Future Music Festival Asia this 17 March, Don’t Think,  a documentary covering a single night of their performance. Directed by Adam Smith, Don’t Think is one debut he does not expect to sell well with neither the distributors nor the audience. With no real narrative strand to anchor the 85-minute flick, and the first footage of the audio-visual legal acid trip of a concert that is a Chemical Brothers concert, we understand his fear.

The latter is exactly the main draw of Don’t Think, The Chemical Brothers’ infamous psychedelic live shows, complete with flying cutlery and clowns, have proved resistant to being filmed until now. Shot on a single night, the film is an accurate depiction of the duo’s shows.

From the projections of the films Adam shot for the duo’s Further to the aforementioned clowns and paintballs, these are all represented it all their don’t-think-about-it-just-have-fun glory. You’d think a concert docu would lack the potency sans actual interviews with audience members and the act alike, but Don’t Think proves otherwise. With the camera following The Chemical Brothers on stage and shifting to specific members of the crowd – as is when one wanders off to get food, complete unconscious of the camera following him – you can argue that no talking heads could provide verbal account of the experience better than the documented visuals.

Don’t take our word for it though, critics have given the film near universal acclaim. One called it the oft-used term usually regulated to narrative-anchored filsm, ‘pure cinema’, while another was more JUICE-esque in his assessment; “it made me want to take loads of drugs.”

We say it’s a bit of both.

From February 1, Don’t Think has been released on over 500 screens in over 20 countries worldwide for exclusive late night screenings. Find more info here.