geoff (08/15/82)
Pink Floyd's ``The Wall'' opened in Toronto on Friday. The film is a combination of live action and animation by Gerald Scarfe, of the Ralph Steadman school of drawing, and is without dialogue. The film follows the album quite closely, so there are no surprises in the plot. I found that the film made more sense than the album had; the lyrics suddenly seem straight-forward. Violence and brutality in The Wall form a background which is quite disturbing because it is more terrifying (and realistic?) than the token blood'n'guts which one has come to expect. A review in the Manchester Guardian Weekly claimed that Rick Waters wrote The Wall from his own experience. Listening to the album, I wasn't aware of how bitter and angry Waters is (or was): dazzling instrumental passages from the album, which I took to be joyous, often accompany scenes of quite horrific violence. Geoff Collyer, U. of Toronto Computing Services