Cinematical

Air Guitar Nation is a mercifully short documentary about a bunch of creativity-deprived neo-hippies who turn nothing -- strumming imaginary axes -- into an 'art form', then treat it as though it's a matter of life or death, and finally talk without irony about how they've made made a contribution to world peace with their art. I'm sure I heard the phrase "If you're strumming an air guitar, you can't pick up a gun," at one point. The movie gives us 'air guitar' versions of everything you'd find in the real rock world -- groupies, road fatigue, and even air-guitar Legs McNeils who appear in talking-head segments and speak with stone-seriousness about the world of air strumming and the people who take up the cause. One of them, a competitor in air guitar championships -- I'd peg him at about 36 years old -- triumphantly tells the cameraman "I raised about $460 through the kindness of friends and one stranger" for a plane ticket to the air guitar world finals in Finland. It was at that point that I wrote in my notebook: "they should reinstate the draft."

The main focus of director Alexandra Lipsitz is on a competitive air guitarist who goes by the handle 'C-Diddy,' which is about as clever as he is. Given name David Jung, he describes himself as an 'actor-comedian' and crafts a silly stage presence that involves a lot of tongue-lashing and wild gyrations. His act is a hit -- as much as an air guitar act can be a hit -- and Jung is soon competing in regionals, nationals, and finally the international championship, all of which seem like they are held in very, very small venues. C-Diddy is rivals with Bjorn Turoque -- the guy with the plane ticket -- and eventually they will face down each other in Finland to see who is the master of strumming an imaginary guitar pick in time to Boston and KISS songs. Official air guitar scoring is done Olympic-style, with judges issuing points up to a perfect 6.0. "I never give sixes, but I gave a six to Bjorn Turoque," one judge says after a competition, while staring soberly at the cameraman.

The highlight of the film comes when we arrive at the world finals, and we see that the Euro competitors are even more serious and over-the-top-committed than the American wackos we've been exposed to thus far. The Belgian champion: "I have one motto, and that's 'keep it real.' You're there to play the guitar, not do a strip-tease. You're not there to make yourself look like a fool." (It helps if you hear this for yourself, in the Belgian accent.) There's even a tense moment when an Austrian competitor brushes off the jovial greeting of American Bjorn Turoque -- he came to Finland to win, not to make friends. But win what, exactly? If that was made clear, I missed it. There's a title, obviously, and one well-known champion gets to make a mocking appearance in a bit on the Jimmy Kimmel show, but other than that there's no evidence that even reaching the pinnacle of air guitar supremacy causes much of a ripple in the larger entertainment community. Maybe they just haven't caught on yet, right? Yeah, that's the ticket.

Even though the film runs a brisk 80-something minutes, Lipsitz is still forced to plug in lots of unnecessary filler material like family photos and bios, as well as drag out certain scenes of air guitar 'concerts' by filming the goings-on outside of the clubs. On the plus side, however, she does manage to capture some of the more colorful characters in the air guitar movement, including the one inevitable character who takes things much farther than everyone else. Known as 'Zac the Magnet,' he's seen at every possible event, either leading teams in pre-strumming warm-up exercises of his own design, or shouting out inspirational phrases to the other air guitarists at an event in Finland. He's like the kid you knew in high-school who would invest great amounts of time and energy to learn and memorize secret video game codes -- he would then beat you with them, and actually be proud of his achievement. At one point C-Diddy is seen shaking his head in frustration at Zac, and mumbling something under his breath.

Like most films about a niche subject, Air Guitar Nation has pretensions to universality, but at this point does anyone really care about people who "just want to be the best at something" anymore? It seems like such a cultural cliche, yet we hear it over and over from several of the competitive air guitarists throughout the film. It strikes me as a weirdly narcissistic and terminally boring goal to have, and in this case a false one, to boot, since dragging your fingernails across imaginary strings isn't something -- it's nothing. Even if you win, you're still the best at absolutely nothing. I think I would have liked the film more if I got the sense that it was in on the joke, and was laughing at these people instead of with them, but my hunch is that the director is mostly sympathetic to the mindset of her subjects. If there's ever another documentary made about air guitar, I hope it's made by someone like Werner Herzog, who can document stupid behavior and mock it at the same time.