Roger Waters: The Wall

Roger Waters' massive worldwide concert tour is interspersed with visits to his grandfather and father's wartime gravesites in the slow and deep film "Roger Waters The Wall," "dedicated to all our fallen loved ones."

The scope of the tour appears first with the feature selection of over two dozen languages, and the large, all-male stage band, with Robbie Wyckoff and Waters sharing most of the vocals. The set is enormous: a giant wall, of course, is built during the course of playing the double album, on which is projected other morphing walls, pieces of animation from the original film, capitalist images including Shell and Mercedes, Waters singing with his younger self from a 1980 Earl's Court show (bringing new resonance to the lyric "this is not how I am"), as well as plenty of anti-war and fascist imagery (hammer and sickle et al), including Floyd's swastika-like double hammer image.

Massive inflatable puppets populate the sides of the stage and the ubiquitous Pink Floyd pig floats over the numerous sold out crowds, whose non-stop fist pumping either rebukes or supports homogenized epithets. Waters' original railing against the machine becomes its own cult as millions mouth every syllable of the iconic album -- has the faux rally become a real rally, an army to support Waters' anti-war stance?

Sean Evans directed and wrote the docu-concert film, and lanky Waters co-directed, co-wrote, produced, and performed, sometimes wearing the black leathers and shirt of his jack-booted dictator character shooting a machine gun, plus playing bass and trumpet, notably at the French and Italian war memorials where his family names are etched (George Henry Waters died in 1916, and Eric Waters on Anzio beach in 1944).

Blu-ray extras include Waters driving his vintage car to the above sites on the continent, full HD versions of the films from the creation of the 2010-2013 tour, and a mini-reunion of the band, live at London's O2 stadium, with David Gilmour adding vocals and guitars to a poignant "Comfortably Numb," and then both joined by Nick Mason on the tambourine for "Outside the Wall."

The film ends saying, "ashes to diamonds, foe and friend -- we are all equal in the end." But Waters still asks decades later: "Mother, did it need to be so high?"

"Roger Waters The Wall"
Blu-ray
$17.99
http://rogerwatersthewall.com