In the spring of 2015, Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead) and a dozen musicians from India were invited by the Jodhpur Maharaja to the Mehrangarh fort. Paul Thomas Anderon filmed those sessions, which also were captured on record.
Making a solid first foray into nonfiction terrain, Paul Thomas Anderson tags along with his frequent soundtrack collaborator and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood to Rajasthan in northwest India, where the British rocker aims to make an album with a host of international artists. Junun sets its stage with a single title card explaining Greenwood’s trip to the Mehrangarh Fort. Anderson’s camera assumes an intimate position, the circle formed by Greenwood and his fellow musicians as they sit on the floor of a giant room recording their joyful and sorrowful songs. With no contextual onscreen information provided, and interview and conversational dialogue kept to a bare minimum, Junun functions as an experiential documentary, one in which all meaning and emotion is derived from being wholly submerged in the music on display. NS
D: Paul Thomas Anderson F: Paul Thomas Anderson, Nigel Godrich, Sharona Katan, Ian Patrick, Arne Warmington E: Andy Jurgensen S: Sam Petts-Davies, Christopher Scarabosio CP: Ghoulardi Film Company, Pippa Robinson, Erica Frauman I: Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood, The Rajasthan Express
Erica Frauman E ericafrauman@me.com
He directed Hard Eight (1996), Boogie Nights (1998), Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love(2002), There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012) and Inherent Vice (2014).