The National, A Skin, A Night and The Virginia EP

It took me a long time to come around to The National. They even admit to being a slow-grower in A Skin, A Night, a film marketed as being documentary about the band and the creation of last year’s sleeper Boxer. While Boxer is a truly amazing piece of music, something that I personally would like to retroactively add to my list of top albums of 2007, this “documentary” doesn’t quite document anything.

When you hear the word “documentary,” you think of a motion picture featuring interviews with the subjects, footage of the subjects in action, interviews with people who know the subjects, and so on. There are no real interviews in A Skin, A Night; there is no discussion with anyone who knows them. A Skin, A Night is less a documentary than it is a series of artsy clips, snapshots into The National’s existence, with little in the way of any substance. There are scenes of the band performing, and these short clips are the only lively parts in the whole hour of this DVD. It’s as though The National kept wandering into the range of director Vincent Moon’s camera while they were talking to themselves, and Moon had a pile of pretty footage or unrelated material. Moon then mated all that stuff together, thus creating his pretentious monstrosity. There’s too much art and not enough insight; I come away from this film with no greater understanding of The National than if I stared at the album cover for an hour. For a film that was supposed to be an insight into the band’s creative process, it doesn’t have much of an informative effect. With little redeeming information, this gets very boring, very fast. It felt like the longest hour of my life, with the constant question echoing in my head, “Will this ever end?

The footage is comprised entirely of grainy, overexposed shots that at times make it hard to distinguish what color is what, or whether this was shot in black and white and the vague semblance of color is an optical illusion. While I love the whole stylishly grainy look, it’s not appropriate for a documentary. To be fair, A Skin, A Night is filled with some beautiful images, but how many times do we have to look out the windows of subway trains? Moon seems obsessed with the view out of windows of moving vehicles; look at the back cover of the case and its view across a plane wing if you don’t believe me.

So, it’s a pretentious art film that was sold as a documentary. False advertising, and vexing with its boredom. On first viewing, I kept waking myself with the sound of my own snoring. If you absolutely have to watch this, I recommend putting on a pot of coffee beforehand. Unless grainy art films are your thing, that is. If so, this will be entirely enjoyable and completely fascinating to you. For those of us looking for some kind of insight into how The National created Boxer, there is nothing but disappointment hiding on this disc.

A Skin, A Night is packaged with The Virginia EP, a CD of b-sides, demos, and some live tracks. Since I’ve only ever heard Boxer, I can’t really say how this compares to the rest of their discography. However, I can say that, given how mind-numbing A Skin, A Night is, The Virginia EP would have been better off being sold separate as a rarities collection rather than being paired with this ghastly thing.

The Virginia EP clocks in at about 48 minutes, which most of us would agree is well over what an EP runs. Wikipedia tells me this is labeled an EP because the it’s made up of mostly previously released material. A consideration I have is that once a release is considered an EP the cost automatically goes down (bands also gets paid less for EPs vs. full albums). Perhaps they called this an EP to help keep the overall price lower than what it would have been had the called it a full-length. At an MSRP of $19.98, I think it’s overpriced anyway, but that has to do with the DVD bundled with the CD.

What can I say about the songs on The Virginia EP? They are made up of the same understated potency we have grown to love about The National. It opens with “You’ve Done It Again, Virginia,” a song so beautiful that I wish it were stretched beyond its pitiful three minutes. “Santa Clara” and “Blank Slate” will sound familiar if you already have the “Mistaken for Strangers” single. “Blank Slate” is a bit more up-tempo than I’m used to hearing from The National, but that’s not a criticism, mind you. The demos are interesting in that they present a much more raw sound, with some growl to a few of them. I like that; it shows a different side to the band, just a shade darker than what we’re used to. Of these, “Rest of Years” is my favorite. Their live cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Mansion on the Hill” is quite good. Hearing the live version of “Fake Empire” makes me want to see The National on tour.

Keep in mind that this doesn’t collect all of their b-sides. Pretty much, this only covers one b-side from the Alligator singles and already released singles from Boxer. I find it curious that they would release a collection with such items so quickly after the originating album, especially considering there are still singles waiting for release (or so it is rumored; supposedly, “Fake Empire” will be a single this year). As I stated previously, The Virginia EP would have been better served as a separate release from the film. Moreover, it would have been even better if it were a true b-sides and rarities collection, gathering all the b-sides from their early releases in addition to what was on the as-released disc.

If there is one thing to truly hate about this release, it’s the package. The two discs are held in place by two black plastic marshmallow-like things glued to a folded piece of cardboard. The whole thing flattens far too easily; beware, as I have seen copies in stores that are squished. I can’t imagine this arrangement would provide much protection to the discs, and find myself handling the whole thing with great care. The only art printed on the package are black and white stills from the film.

If I learned anything informative from Vincent Moon’s take on The National, it’s that Vincent Moon films are to be avoided. However, I am infinitely more interested in The National’s material after watching, so at least there was a mild success to the film, even if I disliked the film itself. The b-sides and rarities in The Virginia EP are a treat, and are what you should really be concerned with as far as this package is concerned, but even then aren’t essential to own. If you are looking to buy this, make sure you are concerned more with the music than the droning film. I want to recommend this to hard-core fans of The National, but I don’t know if even they will like this. If you are that odd niche consumer that drools for artsy grainy films and just happens to like The National, then by all means, this will be the best thing and I can’t recommend it more. But if you’re like me, or even an average fan of this exquisite band, this release will be a mixed bag, and you will not be 100% satisfied with it.



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