Marimbas with death metal, death metal with marimbas! Why shouldn’t it work?

Guatemala might lack any kind of film industry to speak of, however this may be advantageous for a film like Marimbas From Hell that is in some ways free of any shackles of the perception of movies have to be, by fusing documentary, drama and music into a weirdly enjoyable and provocative film. 

Marimbas From Hell opens as a documentary where we meet Don Alfonso who is standing alone in his empty house explaining to the interviewer how he lost all his belongings and had to send his family into hiding due to some over zealous extortionists. All he has left is an old armchair and stylish classical Marimba (a traditional Guatemalan folk instrument, kind of like Glockenspiel but bigger). The title card explains that Alfonso was part of a wider a documentary made a few years ago, however as he feared for his life he asked to be taken out of the film. Now, its 2010, the heat has died down and director Julio Hernandez Cordon wants to tell Alfonso’s story.

So we begin to follow Alfonso, we see no one wants to hear his Marimba anymore, let alone pay him for playing. So he calls on his godson, Chiquilin who gets him in touch with Blacko, a reformed Christian and now doctor who was a founder of Guatemala’s first Death Metal band, ‘Warriors’. Together they decide to fuse their musical styles and create a new kind of musical genre. Death Metal with Marimba!

The long continuous takes of the metal band with Alfonso trying to workout how to incorporate the Marimba into their music and vice versa are utterly hilarious. Blacko in particular is the most vocal and ‘artistically’ driven as the band leader, his constant cursing and swearing at the band as he tries to get them to play what he wants are as funny as anything that happened in Spinal Tap!, including Chiquililn’s awful attempts at being a metal singer, and telling the guitarist to change his ‘fucking t-shirt’ (it reveals he is wearing a ‘Hannah Montana’ t-shirt whilst shredding the riffs!).

Somehow though these scenes do not play out as farcical or even intentionally comedic. It’s as if a group of unlikely guys decided to just hang and try something new out. And this is exactly what is happening. These characters are not actors, they are real people, real characters. The same feelings are evoked when the film takes other turns, and there are moments where the film is genuinely touching and hits at a deeper emotion.

As the band progress we see their struggle to get shows and support in a country that is not well equipped for such a random experiment in artistic fusion from unlikely and unknown protagonists. It is here where perhaps the film takes another turn, by highlighting the difficulty and the bureaucracy in a country that still has many socio-economic problems that make forms of artistic expression out of reach for a largely impoverished population.

The unique style of the film carries a parallel to the content of the narrative. A fusion of styles that perhaps shouldn’t work together, but like Blacko says, “Nobody has ever tried it, and why shouldn’t it be possible?” In the example of the film it is a great artistic success, a wonderfully inventive blend of documentary and fiction, comedy and tragedy, artistic expression and social commentary. In terms of marimba and death metal…, perhaps it’s not to everyone’s ears, but I would definitely buy the T-Shirt.

Marimbas From Hellis screening at Cinecity – The Brighton Film Festival at The Duke of York’s Picturehouse Friday 18^th November 11:00PM

www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/Duke_Of_Yorks/

By Toby King