Building a Broken Mousetrap on AllMovie

The Ex are an anarchist musical ensemble from the Netherlands who started out as a ragged punk rock band in 1979. However, over the course of more than a quarter-century, The Ex evolved into a group that still embraced the rabble-rousing political principles of punk, but took in a broad musical palate that includes improvisational music, avant garde noise, ethnic music from around the world and politically-slanted folk music while combining both acoustic and electric instruments (and sometimes expanding into a band comprising twenty players). Collaborating with musicians as celebrated and diverse as Sonic Youth, Tortoise and the Mekons, The Ex are a gifted and thoroughly uncompromising group, and when they came to New York City for a series of shows, filmmaker Jem Cohen brought along a film crew to capture the band's performances on film. Building A Broken Mousetrap is a documentary which combines The Ex's energetic live concert with footage that explores the parallels and contrasts of life in New York City with the band's home base of Amsterdam. Building A Broken Mousetrap was screened in competition at the 2007 Silverdocs Film Festival, where it was shown with Blessed Are The Dreams Of Men, a short subject by Cohen scored by Andy Moor of The Ex.