Full Metal Village

This amusing, very human film begins by painting an ethnographic portrait of a small community called Wacken, in north-east Germany. We meet the local dairy farmer, who has a dry wit and an interesting idea about 'fun'. We also meet the fat community leader who has a finger in every pie and a cigarette constantly attached to his bottom lip. We meet the older women and churchgoers in the community, who bake cake every Sunday, as well as the teenagers, who dream of getting out of Wacken into the adult world. As the film is introducing us to these people and their lives, in the background we have the knowledge that every year, this tiny typical corner of rural Germany opens its fields to the "Wacken Open Air", a huge, well-organised metal music festival. The film was made over two years, 2005-2006, by a South Korean woman now living in Germany, and this fact, in my opinion adds to the warmth and depth of the film. Outsiders, especially those from other countries, often notice or focus on those things about life in their adopted country which a native may take for granted and ignore. It is these things, rather than, or more than the eventual arrival of the pierced people in black, that make the film the enjoyable and memorable experience that it is. Go see it!