I love this documentary film, it's funny and poingant and really shows the best qualities of regionial storytelling that's both very specific to the area (Minneaoplis circa late 1990's) and universal in terms of how much it's about the human condition and about the foibles of musicians everywhere. Rumor has it that a bootleg VHS of this film played on repeat on tour busses for bands like Pearl Jam. I believe it! A total antidote for the bloated, manufactured rock stars of the MTV generation, this film (and its sequel, Atlas Moth!) is packed with stranger-than-fiction human comedy and down-to-earth realism. The painstaking process documents seven years in the life of the (late) Dan Cleveland, a Minneapolis-based rock guitarist/deliveryman and his band, Dark Horse. In spite of (or because of) a complex obsessive compulsive disorder, Dan is driven by an existential need to simply accomplish. An intense optimist, he meets all obstacles to his musical ambitions with uncanny determination, amazing perseverance, and strange "inventions" which visualize frustrations and make tangible the workings of his mind.
PS the film won 9 National/International Awards, was featured on the Sundance Channel, and was invited to the 2000 Whitney Biennial in NYC.
