Review Summary: A visceral, politically charged collision of sound and voice.
The Film is a rare encounter between two artistic forces who do not dilute one another but rise, through tension, into a higher and more demanding form. Sumac’s heavy, free-form, eruptive sound collides with Moor Mother’s poetic and politically charged voice, creating a work that feels less like an album and more like an experience—something lived through rather than merely heard. Every noise, every breath, every fragment carries weight.
“Scene 1” opens with a sense of pressure: a low, rumbling mass of bass and fractured guitar, over which Moor Mother delivers lines that sound like internal testimony. Nothing here is ornamental; the music and the words feel carved out of necessity. “Scene 2: The Run” pushes this intensity further. Rattling bass, searching radio-like frequencies, and scattered noise converge until her voice finally emerges from the static. The line “I was running out of myself as fast as I could” stands as one of the album’s most devastating moments—raw, direct, and arrestingly human.
Only in “Hard Truth” does the record briefly loosen its grip. It offers a moment of suspended stillness before “Scene 3” marches forward with grim determination. The instrumental passages here recall The Body: sonic architectures that seem on the verge of collapse, vibrating with an almost physical anxiety. And yet, Moor Mother’s voice continually re-centers the chaos; it gives the music direction and moral weight.
“Scene 4” opens a more overtly spectral terrain—layered voices, shadows, unsettling juxtapositions. “Camera” breaks the form even further, drifting into free-jazz disarray and abrasive improvisation reminiscent of Sumac’s collaborations with Keiji Haino. The piece feels like documentation of something dangerous and unrepeatable.
Then comes “The Truth Is Out There,” one of the record’s most expansive moments. The guitars orbit like celestial bodies, and the track settles into a cosmic, almost metaphysical calm. It is unexpectedly reminiscent of Tool’s more atmospheric passages—slow, measured, deliberately unfolding.
The final movement, “Scene 5,” is the album’s culmination. It begins fragmented and searching, then gradually locks into a dense and forceful rhythmic structure. Moor Mother’s lines about bombs, applause, and the fragile search for remaining traces of humanity strike with blunt clarity. When the album finally descends into its quiet coda, it feels less like an ending and more like the breath after a long, necessary confrontation.
The Film is not designed for casual listening. It demands presence, patience, and a willingness to be unsettled. But for those who meet it on its own terms, it becomes one of the most urgent, impressive, and singular works of the year—a collaboration where artistic visions do not merely align but intensify one another. It is a record that must be endured, inhabited, and ultimately understood as a testament to both pain and resistance.
and resistance.
