The world of mockumentaries, as Christopher Guest sees it, is comprised of a lot of different styles and forms of music. Having first co-written the heavy metal satire This Is Spinal Tap, then co-writing and directing the spoof of smalltown musicals Waiting for Guffman, he has clearly found a melodic niche to play around in. His latest oeuvre is A Mighty Wind, a stab at a tried and true staple of Americana: folk music. However, the most intriguing aspect to Guest's growing infatuation with poking fun at different musical genres, is how the parody songs themselves continue to get better in quality with each subsequent film. He and his creative team may be aiming to lampoon, but the line gets just a little more blurry with each subsequent, reverent number they compose and perform.
Once again, Guest has assembled a top-notch roster of improv veterans to present a comical portrait of the folk industry. He and fellow musicians Michael McKean and Harry Shearer play the Folksmen, a trio from the 60's who only had one big hit ("Eat at 'oe's"). They are summoned to re-unite by Jonathan Steinbloom (Bob Balaban), a retentive businessman whose father Irving, producer of the Folksmen and several other bands, has recently passed away. Now Jonathan tries to organize a fitting tribute concert. In addition to the Folksmen, he also calls on the New Main Street Singers, a seemingly squeaky clean band that calls themselves a "neuf-tet", and Mitch and Mickey (Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara), a duo whose bonds of love may or may not be rekindling after having spent decades apart.
The bulk of the film focuses on the rehearsal period leading up to the concert, to be telecast on the Public Broadcasting Network (a spot-on dig at PBS, featuring Ed Begley, Jr. as a Yiddish executive producer). The performances are, naturally, gobbled up by the crowd. Personally, with an apt title like A Mighty Wind, I was half expecting that the songs would sound like Ian & Sylvia ("Four Strong Winds"), Joan Baez ("Blowin' In the Wind", "Winds of the Old Days") or Bob Dylan ("Caribbean Wind"). They mostly sound like bluegrass rather than folk, but that's okay, it's a small point that is soon forgotten.
As with many of Guest's comedies, the best laughs come from the smaller, throwaway lines and moments. In one hilarious scene, the Folkmen are explaining the problem of having released their albums without holes on the surface, where the fans had to perforate holes into the records to listen to them. In another, members of the New Main Street Singers explain that they are witches who practice "colour worship". That these different, basically unrelated tangents are the result of improvisation by the players makes them all the more exquisite. The icing on the cake comes in what must have been the post-production work on the film, where phony album covers or file footage has been inserted featuring the cast to magnify the so-called reality of the mockumentary.
Eugene Levy hits his comic apex as the dazed and confused Mickey. Seeming to transform himself into the Ozzy Osbourne of folk music, Levy steals every scene he is in with his wandering eyes and bizarre voice. Fred Willard roars over-the-top as a cloying record producer and Bob Balaban is wonderful as the straight man to Michael Hitchcock's turn as Lawrence E. Turpin, a fellow organizer of the tribute. Other "Guest" turns by Parker Posey, Larry Miller, Paul Benedict are fun in a caricature kind of way, but with so little screen time they quickly get lost in the shuffle.
With A Mighty Wind, there is that rare kind of comedy that also allows us to feel affection for its targets. The movie rarely meanders and offers some great laughs. Although the format of these mockumentaries is starting to show signs of familiarity, it is nevertheless far more entertaining than the gross-out comedies that come and go during any given year. With a full-blown pool of talent to draw from now, the burning question becomes what subject is up next for this terrific troupe to tackle?
