Thinking Out LoudBoth were released in the last few months, both are about supernatural evil and the power of music to vanquish (or feed) it, both are currently sitting on 97% at Rotten Tomatoes.
Sinners and KPop Demon Hunters are otherwise quite different movies. One is a horror film, the other great family fun. One is gritty, the other glitzy; blues vs pop. One grapples with the ugly aftermath of American slavery, the other offers a Disneyfied (but deft) message about being your true self. Via a grand battle with vampires on the one hand, and demons on the other.
I loved both movies, in no small part because of the music, which takes them from entertaining to mesmerising. The music is central not only to the films’ appeal but also to their invocation of a spirit realm; in Sinners, young Sammie’s virtuosic musical gift is so profound it can “conjure spirits from the past and the future” and even “pierce the veil between life and death”. In KPop Demon Hunters, girl group Huntr/x maintains a protective layer between their fans and the demon world through the power of their songs – and the demons fight back by forming a rival boy band to siphon human souls to their overlord Gwi-Ma.
From the legend of Orpheus to “Satanic panics” about dancing, rock’n’roll, or death metal, humans have always sensed the spiritual power of music – for good or (possibly) ill. Beethoven called it “the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend”.
The films’ supernatural creatures can be read as metaphors, but the function of music as a gateway to transcendence resists the same treatment. Music reminds us we are souls, and part of a more capacious reality than we can readily grasp.
This Thinking Out Loud was first published on Facebook.