Andrew (Miles Teller) has a poster on his bedroom wall that says: 'If you don’t practice, you’ll end up in a rock band.' Andrew is a jazz drummer, a real percussionist. He is 19 and just accepted to the most renowned conservatory in the USA. There he meets the radical and aggressive teacher Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), who motivates his students with terrifying and verbally abusive methods. Fletcher’s favorite story is when a drummer threw a cymbal at Charlie Parker, which prompted him to retreat for a year to intensively practice and when he returned he gave the best solo anyone had ever heard. Soon after Fletcher tells this story a chair was thrown at Andrew.
WHIPLASH is brilliantly acted film and the Big Band jazz pieces are convincing. The film portrays the cutthroat competition in the jazz world and Fletcher’s lessons seem more like boot camp scenes from a war or sport film. Yet it celebrates the force and energy of big band jazz like no other film. The fantastic sound mix has been nominated for an Oscar©, but the film’s best pieces originate from Don Ellis (‘Whiplash’), Duke Ellington (‘Caravan’) and Buddy Rich (the final drum solo) and therefore can’t be nominated. Director Damien Chazelle was himself in one of the most successful US jazz bands and Miles Teller has been drumming since he was 15 and obviously trained intensively for the role. Feature films about making music have never been so convincing.
The position on Fletcher’s brutal teaching method in WHIPLASH remains ambivalent. Andrew is both terrified and in awe of his teacher. But Andrew is not your nice boy from next door who coincidentally possesses a special talent. He becomes abusive at the family table when he receives less recognition than his mediocre soccer-playing cousin. He has no friends and when he ask a girl out on a date, the first thing he asks her is “So what do you do?” as if they were in an assessment center and not a pizzeria. Somehow Andrew and Fletcher seem cut from the same cloth in the way of human qualities.On some level WHIPLASH is a slap in the face to the type of manliness Fletcher represents, but it doesn’t deconstruct this ideal. The drill sergeant, the football coach, the trash-talking bandleader: they wipe the blood from their cheeks and conquer while celebrating their decline and resurrection. Even for those who don’t appreciate war and sport can hardly help not admit that it is sometimes more important for someone to play until one’s fingers bleed and then be yelled at by some asshole instead of just going out for pizza with one’s friends. Who can resist Duke Ellington’s music when it practically jumps in your face?

Tom Dorow (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Carla MacDougall