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Lichtspielhaus Reviews Jan/Feb 2004

Rammstein
Lichtspielhaus
(Universal DVD; £17.99)

Blazing Squad
Comprehensive video collection from Berlin Industrialists

KKKK

The Lowdown: With a legacy in pump action dildos, flamethrowers and Things That Go Bang, it’s not like you could ever accuse Rammstein of scrimping on the visual side of things. What you might miss about them however, is just how carefully and creatively they’ve explored the medium away from the grand industrial gestures of their live shows.

Watch ‘Lichtspielhaus’ – a complete collection of all their videos to date – and you’ll see plenty more fire, but the real explosions here are those of imagination, because Rammstein – a band as absurd, as brilliant, and as sinister as they are entertaining – are a video director’s dream. Here, Tarantino-esque gangsters (‘Du Hast’) sit alongside smack-addled Snow Whites (‘Sonne’), and, ahem, colonies of raving ants (‘Links 2-3-4’). Like you’re going to care about the language barrier after that.

Highlights include on-set interviews, with plenty of insight offered from the usually elusive Till Lindemann, while those still pining for their pyro fix can gorge themselves silly on six years of additional select live footage. Excellent.

Extras: Live footage, interviews, making ofs and trailers.
Web:www.rammstein.com
Catherine Yates

Terrorizer – January/February 2004 – Issue #116

Rammstein
‘Lichtspielhaus’
Universal DVD

Rating: 9

Nearly 10 years into the band’s career, the German industrialists have finally released a double whammy disk containing all their promo videos and a batch of live footage. It’s all wrapped up in some rather industrial-looking graphics – about time too!

From the Eurocamp of ‘Du Riechst so Gut’ through to the pyromaniacal ‘Feuer Frei!’ this collection of 12 darkly sinister videos shows just how warped and twisted Rammstein really are. It also shows how their songs have greatly improved over the years..

There are also tracks taken from six of the concerts over the years to give you a taster of the powerful live experience. Whilst it can’t capture the sheer intensity of Rammstein’s shows, it does give you a taster of their flame-enhanced performances (although the infamous dildo scene does seem to be sadly absent).

Special extras include trailers, commercials and a series of mini documentaries showing the making of five of the videos. Ever wondered how the coal-covered boys got so small in ‘Sonne’? Well now you can find out. It’s all subtitled so proficiency in German is not required and it’s all interesting stuff. My only gripe is that the titles page is a little tricky to operate initially because it’s so stylistic.

With over three hours of material, most of it unseen on British television, this DVD is indispensable viewing for anyone with even a fleeting interest in Rammstein.
Natasha Scharf.

NME - Lichtspielhaus Review 31-Jan-04

N.M.E. – 31 - January 2004 Issue #05
DVD Round-up
by RobFitzpatrick

Rating: 5
Life really is too short for overtly theatrical Teutonic disco-metal but, sadly, no-one ever told Rammstein. Utilising every tiresome video cliché in the book (scary kids, post-apocalyptic wank-scapes, dollybird and snakes), ‘Lichtspielhaus’ sees the gurning Germans come on like Right Said Fritz doing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.


Metal Hammer – February 2004

Rammstein
Lichtspielhaus
Universal DVD
Rammstein always had an unashamedly arty, even pretentious, agenda and it is easy to see this developing by watching their videos. The ‘Du Hast’ single that was responsible for breaking them in the US and the UK is included here and opens with the iconic shot of an unknown road lit by the headlamps of a speeding car at night from David Lynch’s The Lost Highway. After several commercial (but not necessarily critical) failures the director realised that he needed to reconnect with the young, intelligent and alienated core of film goers who made up his audience. So it was a fairly wise decision of his to rope in bands like Rammstein and Nine Inch Nails to appear on the soundtrack. And what is, to be frank, a fundamentally demented film became a smash.

The video features some of the more chilling scenes from the film cut with more traditional shots of the band on stage (albeit with singer Till Lindemann on fire). However, after a while the operatic East German six piece were less willing to rely on someone else’s vision and started to develop their own aesthetic. Take for example the film that accompanies their cover of Depeche Mode’s ‘Stripped’: What seems like some fairly innocuous pre war shots of nudes takes on a more sinister meaning when the origin of the clips is known. All of the scenes are taken from Olympia, Leni Riefenstahl’s famous film of the 1936 Berlin Olympics – and she happens to be none other than Hitler’s favourite film maker. Although this move earned them the fury of the Anti Nazi League in this country the band denied any link with Nazism and, to be honest, slamming a band for liking Hitler’s favourite film maker doesn’t make that much more sense than slamming a band for enjoying Stalin’s favourite brand of tomato sauce. It would do to remind ourselves at this point that Lindemann is an ex-Olympic swimmer himself. In fact Rammstein may well have come from a fairly totalitarian background they being ex-eastern bloc factory workers but this is one of Socialism and there are many visual references to this in their promos – the closed down factory, the mine and refinery, the worker ants of ‘Links 2-3-4’ etc. But they are an unashamedly camp and operatic band as well that have an extremely well defined romantic side to their music that would seem odd coming from almost anywhere else.

They do sometimes wander into the arena of the totally ridiculous however, ‘Du Riechst So Gut 98’ is a high gothic pastiche of Company of Wolves and Bram Stoker’s Dracula and is all red contact lenses and heaving bosoms. ‘Sonne’ sees the band trapped as dwarves by a sadist Snow White who sends then to work in a gold mine. And why does she need all the gold? To rack up into lines and snort up her nose, obviously!

The behind the scenes footage and interviews on the other hand drag on a little and the band appear to be exactly as dour and serious as you would have expected but the tons of live footage, however is excellent and gives you the full Tutonic front 242 meets Ministry meets Queen splendour of the experience. In the light of the Great White tragedy that occurred last year some of their use of fire on stage seems a little incongruous now to say the least. But it is hard to fault a man dressed like Mad Max who walks on stage at the Big Day Out in Sydney and starts firing fireworks out of his boots as he does here.

This is a comprehensive and excellent collection.
Rating:
Film – 9
Extras – 7
Reviewed by John Doran.

Rocksound – February 2004 – Issue #02

Rammstein
‘Litchspielhaus’
(This is the spelling in the magazine!)
Universal

Rating: 8
With so many bands issuing DVD packages recently it’s hard to tell a first class offering from a ghastly outing. Many bands churn out sub-standard, filler-ridden efforts to sap more money from their indulgent fanbase. Rammstein however are not guilty, putting out a DVD that not only clocks in at 205 minutes, but also one that boasts the entire Rammstein promotional video catalogue as well as the making of the videos. Another attractive element of this release is the in-concert highlights, captured over the years from various tours around the world. All of this teamed with a first-rate in-DVD design and layout, not to mention the immense spot-varnished fold-out packaging, you’ll be hard-pressed to find something to grumble about.
www.rammstein.com
Mark James

© 2005 Sue Lindemann