Educational Media Reviews Online

Beatz: Divergences & Contradictions of Electronic Music is essentially a compilation of interviews with many, many electronic music artists. Topics covered in the film focus on the roots of electronic music, evolution of software used to create digital music, and incorporation of visual elements into musical productions. The number of interviews in multiple languages demonstrates the global reach of electronic music. The filmmaker is Eduardo de la Calle, a musician and DJ who runs a label called Analog Solutions, which releases music only on vinyl and is also the studio that released this DVD.

Unfortunately, while the film’s conception is interesting and important, its production leaves a lot to be desired. Distracting background music overpowers poor quality/over-edited audio in most of the interviews – it is extremely difficult to understand the people being interviewed. And much of the time, the video quality is poor, as well. It is almost as though the interviewer just grabbed people off the street and videotaped them with a mobile device. But even if the recording quality were passable, simply collating what seems to be 100 brief interviews with little to no editorial intervention does not a satisfying viewer experience make.