Pink Floyd: The Wall

"The Wall" is a legendary album and equally legendary film by the British rock band Pink Floyd. Both works are icons in their genres, leaving you with incredibly strong feelings. This is not music to be casually listened to, nor is the film one to enjoy while doing laundry. You have to feel them. In such a state, they have the right effect. I confess that for many years, Pink Floyd's music passed me by. I didn’t seek it out. I'm sure it played around me, but I just didn’t have the opportunity to get to know it better because I wasn’t interested. I don't want to say that I regret it, but while watching the film Pink Floyd: The Wall, I realized I was missing out on a lot. Knowing the song "Another Brick in the Wall" is certainly not everything, as their other tracks are incredible too. "The Wall" is an album filled with powerful lyrics, which were subsequently translated into the film, where the lead role of Pink is played by Bob Geldof, the frontman of The Boomtown Rats, who became famous for his efforts to help African nations through the massive project Live Aid, which brought artists together to raise sufficient funds. Choosing this musician as the leading actor was an excellent decision. He is sufficiently crazy at times and gives his character the right charisma and insanity. In personal and introspective scenes, he is human, just as he is inhuman in the role of a dictator. The film is full of great visuals, whether it's the infamous grinding of students in a giant meat grinder or the march of hammers. It is definitely an experience that must be lived. (28.02.2013)

I grew up with Pink Floyd and I still love their music, and although I prefer other albums than “The Wall” (the brilliant “Dark Side of the Moon”, for instance), there are some passages from this film that I will always love. Roger Waters tackled his childhood traumas and brought the world beautiful music and very depressing lyrics, which Parker skillfully translated to the screen, but it must be said, what would his film be without the unforgettable drawings of Gerald Scarfe, the author of all the animations and the cover of “The Wall”. (27.06.2005)

Very impressive in the details, but it failed to have any significant effect on me. And I didn’t even like the music :-( (14.08.2009)

A difficult to understand yet captivating film. I would like to know if Roger Waters had this in mind when he wrote the original music, because if so, I really don't envy his ideas and visions. I'm not giving this unparalleled piece the highest rating simply because it became incomprehensible in the last half hour, and I probably didn't understand exactly what the creators wanted to express. On the contrary, the first forty minutes are among the best I've ever seen. (19.05.2006)

The album "Pink Floyd: The Wall" is one of those to which I regularly return with strict regularity, and the central musical motif brought my neighbors to madness when I was constantly playing it. Nevertheless, I avoided the film for many years because I suspected that Parker and I would not get along. In the past, I have encountered feature films conceived as hundred-minute music videos, and in my opinion, these projects fail because they would work great when divided into individual songs accompanied by visuals, but they do not hold together as a whole. They appear too inconsistent, and The Wall is a clear example of that. I would rate the six-minute music video "Another Brick in the Wall" on YouTube at 100%, but here, after 10 minutes, I already felt that my ominous suspicions were being fulfilled, and with each passing minute, I realized that I would appreciate just listening much more. The visuals simply interfere. This is not changed by the presence of many ideas, interesting animations, and great shots, because the film is supposed to function as a whole, not as a collection of parts. Overall impression: 45%. (27.03.2020)