Pavements

How best to commemorate the career of Pavement, one of the defining indie-rock bands of the 1990s? Legendary frontman Stephen Malkmus would likely be opposed to the usual encomiums. A museum exhibition? How about a jukebox Broadway musical? Or perhaps a prestige movie biopic? Alex Ross Perry (Listen Up Philip, NYFF52; Her Smell, NYFF56) gives us all of the above and more in his pleasurably rule-flouting sorta-documentary. Fueled by a sardonic, tricky sense of humor reminiscent of Pavement’s caustic, idiosyncratic music, Perry’s film shows little patience for hagiography—or any other orthodoxy—in its nonlinear, absurdist approach. Pavements integrates archival footage of the band at the height of their cult popularity, newly shot material following them during their recent comeback tour in 2022, and a kaleidoscope of semi-scripted contemporary scenes about the shooting of a movie within the movie starring Jason Schwartzman, Fred Hechinger, Nat Wolff, Tim Heidecker, Logan Miller, and a hilarious Joe Keery as an actor seeking awards glory. Above all, Pavements’ irreverent inquiry into mythmaking evinces a deep love for its subject and for a now lost alternative culture.