Cannes Film Festival 2021 Day 2: The Velvet Underground (2021)

The Velvet Underground – stunning documentary by Todd Haynes premiers at Cannes Film Festival.

What the critics say...

by Alexa Dalby

The Velvet Underground

CAUTION: Here be spoilers

“And now, just premiered out of competition today at the Cannes Film Festival, comes director Todd Haynes’ feature documentary debut on the avant garde rock/punk band The Velvet Underground in a movie of the same name that shows why this ’60s creation from the world of Andy Warhol has made such an impact decades long after their inception and heyday. – Deadline

“Electrifyingly structured doc…avant-garde cineaste Jonas Mekas, to whom the film is dedicated. Making ingenious use of split-screen, experimental montage and densely layered images and sound over two fabulously entertaining hours, Haynes puts his distinctive stamp on the material while crafting a work that could almost have come from the same artistic explosion it celebrates…this exciting evocation of a time and place is certain to be one of the standout music docs of the year.” – Hollywood Reporter

“This is a great documentary about people who are serious about music and serious also about art, and what it means to live as an artist. Where perhaps it falls down is on the ordinary, gossipy sense of how exactly the band members could have fallen out so badly, and how painful that surely must have been.” – Guardian

“Todd Haynes channels the essence of rock group The Velvet Underground in this immersive documentary…” – Screen Daily

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