The National - A Skin, A Night & The Virginia EP

Parisian filmmaker Vincent Moon has made a name for himself capturing impromptu, lo-fi performances of dozens of indie rockers for La Blogotheque. The popularity of these “Take Away Shows” led to collaborations with Arcade Fire and R.E.M.

Moon has also had an association and friendship with The National for a few years, and Beggars Banquet recently released his film about the band, A Skin, A Night, on DVD. Like the Take Away Shows, the documentary is a lo-fi affair, with extra-bright whites and dark, grainy blacks.

It’s also far from the typical band documentary, in that it doesn’t really document any events in particular. Rather, Moon’s impressionist approach sheds just a little light on mostly mundane moments. A Skin, A Night is filled with anxiety, nervousness and an overall lack of confidence, focused especially on singer Matt Berninger--whether he’s looking worried and tired in front of a computer screen littered with sound waves, mumbling his baritone lines tentatively into a mic or carefully listening back to an unfinished track.

The whole film has the feel of a band in those tense moments before taking the stage, which makes sense. Moon happened to catch The National at an interesting time, revealing a band right on the cusp of something. It’s that period just before the band finished recording its breakout fourth album, Boxer (my personal favorite of 2007), and all the rave reviews that followed. One of the band members sums it up best in the film when he says, “The film comes at a very interesting time for The National. It’s after we’ve found our audience a little bit, but at the same time we’re making this record, which is taking forever. We’re very much in the middle of something and we don’t know where we’ll end up.”

That fortunate sense of timing, combined with Moon’s fresh approach to filmmaking, are the film’s redeeming qualities, but it’s no masterpiece. For one thing, it’s aggravatingly difficult to decipher many of the interviews with band members because the music alongside their spoken words completely muffles them beyond recognition. Better mixing would help.

Also, the film probably won’t grab you unless you’re already a fan of the band (a fault it does have in common with many band documentaries). The painstaking atmosphere surrounding a group of perfectionists trying to record an album is captured well, but watching that can itself become laborious. Plus, there’s not a whole lot of great music in the film, more ambient snippets, so it wouldn’t be a good introduction for non-fans.

The same can be said for The Virginia EP, a 12-track collection of B-sides, covers, demos and live recordings that accompanies the DVD. It all feels vaguely familiar, with Berninger’s baritone carrying the mostly mellow tunes. But his vocal delivery feels uninspired, and few of the songs come together as nicely as those on Boxer. As is the case with most collections of afterthought songs released between full-length albums, most of the arrangements, lyrics and production never reach the talented band’s full potential. There’s usually a good reason a song has remained a demo instead of morphing into a fleshed-out album track.

Had the band decided to whittle the hodgepodge down a bit to the length of most EPs, it could have worked. The previously unreleased opening track, “You’ve Done It Again, Virginia,” with contributions from Sufjan Stevens and Marla Hansen, nestles up nicely against UK B-sides “Santa Clara” and “Blank Slate,” making for a strong opening. Top it off with “Lucky You,” taken from the band’s Daytrotter session, and you’ve got a strong EP to tide fans over till the next LP.

But in The Virginia EP’s current form, listeners have to slog through some ho-hum demo tracks, an over-ambitious cover of Springsteen’s “Mansion on the Hill” and superfluous live versions of “Fake Empire” and “About Today.” Here’s hoping the band’s much-anticipated next album avoids similar pitfalls.

mp3: The National - You've Done It Again, Virginia