Junun review – Paul Thomas Anderson and Jonny Greenwood rock Rajasthan

Prominently advertised on the London underground by online video subscription service Mubi, who have the exclusive rights to it in the UK, Junun is an hour-long documentary directed by Paul Thomas Anderson about an east-west meeting of musical minds that took place this year in Rajasthan. Western tunesters Jonny Greenwood and Nigel Godrich (lead guitarist and producer of Radiohead, respectively) and Israeli composer-singer Shye Ben Tzur are shown sitting democratically on the floor of a splendidly appointed chamber at the 15th-century Mehrangarh fort as they jam with some of India’s finest artists, including trumpeter Aamir Bhiyani, nagara players Nathu and Narsi Lal Solanki, vocals and harmonium-playing duo Zaki and Zarkir Ali Qawwal, and a dozen or so other to produce some divine, swirling tunes. It’s an austere but stylishly packaged work, serious and respectful, which studies the performers as they play with mostly long unbroken takes that run through to the end of each song. There’s a tiny bit of travelogue stuff, background colour showing the city below the fort where locals mill about and craftsman fix out-of-tune instruments while birds wheel in the sky overhead. But, following the Fred Wiseman school of documentary-making, which eschews naming and explaining, the emphasis is squarely on the music itself, not the people who play it. Comparisons might be made with Wim Wenders’ tribute to the music of Cuba, Buena Vista Social Club, but that was a much more accessible, populist work and it’s doubtful this will do for the Indian folk artists featured here what that older film did for its charismatic, elderly stars. The weird paradox about this film is that despite the fact that the musicians are identified by name only in the very last minutes of the movie, the name of the director, Paul Thomas Anderson, is splashed all over the advertising campaign. You can’t help wondering if it’s his involvement that’s secured the film a slot in the New York film festival’s lineup this week, making this a bit of a PR coup for Mubi. Because ultimately, it’s a good, solid little picture, but it’s not that great, and certainly not noticeably more accomplished or compelling than many of the other music-themed docs that come out each week with less fanfare. Given how fruitful and fascinating the collaboration has been between Anderson and Greenwood, who wrote the extraordinary scores for Anderson’s last three features, There Will Be Blood, The Master and Inherent Vice, this returned favour is a little disappointing. Anderson has brought much less personality and invention to this project than Greenwood gave to those movies. No doubt, Anderson groupies will swoon all the same and strain to see congruence with themes explored elsewhere in his oeuvre, but the average viewer watching in her living room or on her tablet on the train will wonder what all the fuss is about.