Air Guitar Nation

Alexandra Lipsitz, USA, 2006, 81 minutes

The USA has a truly great rock heritage and Americans often sweep the board at international competitions. How can these two things be combined?

The world Air Guitar championships, that's how. This wonderfully entertaining film charts the fortunes of the 2 American contenders in the 2003 Air Guitar championships in Oulu, Finland. Our heros are David Jung AKA C.Diddy, a flamboyant Hello Kitty fan who wows the crowd with his playful style, and his arch nemesis Bjorn Turoque, a deadly serious air guitar player He has made it his life and he is not one who will stand by quietly and let his rival walk over him.

Join these 2 gladiators as they go into a deadly serious battle.

Air guitar has been around almost as long as rock and roll. How did something normally associated with spotty teenage boys become so big?

First held in 1996 the world championship has become a truly global phenomenon . The theory is that it is a person playing air guitar cannot hold a weapon and so air guitar becomes a tool for world peace. It is said to be the purest of artforms, for it is entirely about losing yourself in the moment of the performance and has nothing whatsoever to do with the tools of the trade. Or something. It has its fanatical devotees as does any art or performance.

One might ask why, only to receive the answer why not.

If I were to get pretentious then I could say that this film, in documenting a fundamentally absurd subject, is merely a reflection of a nihilistic worldview. By holding a mirror up to something daft we are led to reflect on the triviality of life. Perhaps these performers are deeper than we may think at first.

Or perhaps not. I can honestly say this is one of the most purely fun films I have ever seen. Turoque and C.Diddy are conflicting yet engaging personalities and you will surely find yourselves rooting for them in the film. What makes it all the more wonderful for me is that all this is absolutely real, all these things actually exist and we can only give thanks to the people of Finland for giving us this precious gift, and for talented director Alexandra Lipsitz for bringing it to the world.

'To air is human' as the tagline goes. Come and join in and rock with us.

Review by Louise Oliver
Written for EUFS Programme Autumn 2008