Fantasia 2024: Voivod: We Are Connected Review

Directed by: Felipe Belalcazar
Written by: Felipe Belalcazar

Starring:
Michel ‘Away’ Langevin
Denis ‘Snake’ Bélanger
Denis ‘Piggy’ D’Amour
Dan ‘Chewey’ Mongrain
Tobias Forge
King Fowley
Claude Grégoire
Danko Jones
Jason Newsted
George Stroumboulopoulos
Zach Blair
Laura Wiebe
Mikael Åkerfeldt

Image Credit: Fantasia IFF

Running Time: 153 minutes
Not Rated

They may not have the household name recognition level of Metallica or Anthrax, but there’s no denying Voivod’s place in metal history. The versatile Canadian band has left its mark on the genre without the benefit of a chart-friendly style, shifting genres as often as they’ve changed lineups. With a 42-year career, they’ve been cited as influences by the likes of Pantera, Dave Grohl, and many others.

Felipe Belalcazar’s new documentary Voivod: We Are Connected attempts to give the band their due. The crowdfunded documentary, which had its world premiere at Fantasia International Film Festival, is a telling of the band’s story that feels very appropriate to the group’s identity: expansive, unique, and very much for the fans while also being a bit impenetrable to the casual viewer.

We Are Connected traces the band’s history from its beginnings as the passion of four guys in Jonquière, Quebec – Michel ‘Away’ Langevin, Denis ‘Snake’ Bélanger, Denis ‘Piggy’ D’Amour, and Jean-Yves ‘Blacky’ Thériault – who bonded over music. Belalcazar relies heavily on interviews with Away and Snake, as Piggy passed away in 2005 and Blacky declined to participate in the film.

Through the two founding members, we learn about their early days as a group and how their diverse metal influences created the unique style that they’re known for. Both Away and Snake come off as quite affable and clearly enjoy recounting tales from their early days, such as Snake coming into audition or how they used an office building owned by Snake’s father as a practice hall until a drunken party resulted in homemade pyro being set off that led to the fire department being called in.

At almost two and a half hours, the documentary has plenty of time to travel the group’s history. It is told almost entirely through anecdotes, whether from the band members (also including later members like Dan ‘Chewey’ Mongrain and Jason Newstead of Metallica fame) or from other luminaries in the industry like Ghost’s Tobias Forge, King Fowley of Deceased, music video director Claude Grégoire, media personality George Stroumboulopoulos and others.

It’s a hefty lineup of talking heads, and that’s both a blessing and a curse for the film. There are plenty of people who talk intelligently and at length about what made the band’s style so unique, the impact of music videos on the band’s success and their chameleon-like ability to evolve their sound while avoiding the notion of being sellouts.

These interviews supplement the band members’ discussions of the Voivod “storyline” and their more personal recollections of events. Belalcazar covers crucial events such as Piggy’s fights with cancer, opening for Rush (and nearly missing their show due to bus issues), and how they adapted to the various departures, replacements and returns that have shape their career.

Even at two and a half hours, a 42-year history means there’s a lot of story to tell. Belalcazar does a mostly admirable job of organizing the interviews into a linear story, albeit one that leans heavily on certain eras of their history. The editing does sag at a few moments, bogging down briefly in one anecdote or another, and a tighter approach could have helped the film incorporate some of those more brushed-over areas.

It’s also clear that he’s making a film for those who are already very familiar with the group. Most Voivod fans are going to know who Opeth frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt or Rise Against’s Zach Blair is. But if you don’t, this film isn’t going to tell you; it just gives them a name graphic without context, puts them in front of the camera and lets them speak. That’s not necessarily a huge problem, but it also displays a lack of consistency as people like journalist Laura Wiebe and author Michael Popoff get descriptors.

That lack of polish by no means ruins the film, and the true joy is seeing Away and Snake talk with just as passion and jubilation now as they seemingly did back in the day. There’s nothing at all wrong with a fan documentary and considering how crowdfunding brought it to life that’s an entirely understandable approach. It’s very much in the spirit of the band that this is not the most accessible of films. But one gets the sense that it’s not supposed to be. This is a celebration of a unique and important band in metal, and in that it’s thoroughly successful.

The Fantasia International Film Festival takes place in Montreal from July 18th through August 4th.

6.5

The final score: review Average

The 411

Felipe Belalcazar's Voivod: We Are Connected is an expansive documentary that serves as both oral history and celebration of the Canadian metal giants. Very much made for fans of the group and thus less accessible to novices, it is sure to be a delight for people who grew up with the band’s unique blend of metal in their album collection.