Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour film is as exhilarating as anything you might see in a cinema this year

Chances are that if you were watching a film at a theatre near you this weekend that coincided with the timings of a certain concert film, you could probably hear people scream, wail and copiously hoot through what are supposed to be sound-proof walls. Who said the concert film is dead or that in a post-pandemic world, the idea of the gig or showmanship so crucial to the rise of rock-and-roll, itself is dead. Taylor Swift’s ongoing Eras Tour, has broken records, smashed patriarchal ideas around globalism and practically upstaged formatted events as this relentless juggernaut of superstardom which may eventually crown the singer as the biggest artist alive. Watching a two-and-a-half-hour film of her famed tour isn’t like the actual thing, but comes pretty close to whatever second-hand performative and musical heaven feels like.

Concert films were dead. They briefly reared their head during the pandemic, but the idea of a concert film as being a little more than a memory block, had de-aged to the point that they probably felt as redundant a relaxing chair in the middle of a head-banging chorus. To which point, watching Swift’s concert film (alongside hundreds of Swiftians mind you), is an exercise in adaptation and abandonment. It’s eerie to be hemmed in by space, by the liminality of a dark theatre at first to only be pulled out of it, whiplashed into losing your tongue and orientation by a performer so exemplary, even a dull screen can hardly flatten her aura, her ability to core of about any form of entropy. “You’re my soulmate crowd,” she says at one point to whoever was lucky to attend the actual event. It’s a sentiment echoed by those watching her up-close, in a setting that is as surreal for an Indian audience, as it must be for the people hosting them. Indian theatres probably aren’t equipped to handle the playful mania of fandom like this piece.

The Eras Tour is a lengthy but flawless mix of performative elegance and technological brevity that despite its devotion of a superstar, has a fair bit of cinematic tricks up its sleeve. In fact, in cheerfully self-appraising ways, it offers you aspects of the show - the intimate close-ups, the arena-sized views of all the flashy technology (a rendition of a giant cobra slithering into the audience might just give you give you goosebumps), the sense of a curated outlook that could, in a live concert manifest as confusion and anarchy. The film was shot over three different shows in Los Angeles and is divided into 10 acts that cover the singer’s discography. The epic act is punctuated by more than just that gifted vocal cord. There’s acting, exquisite set-pieces, sensational choreography, bewitching design and a light sound show carnival that could be marvelled at in isolation. If not for the woman, seamlessly pulling its strings.