Depeche Mode 101

This 1989 documentary, co-directed by D. A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus and David Dawkins, records the last concert of Depeche Mode's 1988 American tour and the road to it. The title comes from that hundred and first and final show: the concert played to sixty thousand people at the Pasadena Rose Bowl. Pennebaker's observational method works along two lines here: on one side the band and the economics of touring, on the other a group of fans travelling to the show by bus. That second line is the film's most original element, presenting fandom not as consumer behaviour but as a way of forming a community. In the backstage sections the band's exhaustion and the distance between its members are visible. Who it's for: Depeche Mode listeners and anyone interested in the late-eighties electronic scene and observational documentary. Who it's not for: anyone wanting an orderly account of the band's history, or bothered by raw, unshaped footage.