Bono has been a ubiquitous presence in most of my adult life. I just got up in the world when U2’s break-out album, Wararrived, and in 1987’s JOshua TreeBono and lead guitarist Edge felt inevitable. In other words, I saw U2 frontman Bono as less a walking and more of a modern one.
We are both old men now, licking our mental wounds and (in Bono’s case) Enigmatically reveals them to the world in, first 2022’s well -received memoir, Surrender: 40 songs, a story, And now as an unusually spoken and musical journey, Bono: Stories of surrender – The first immersive video feature length movie ever released on Vision Pro. It is a happy, funny, sad, sometimes frustrating and often intense guided tour back through Bono’s life and career.
However, it is a story about Bono (Paul Hewson) and “Da” his deeply Irish father, Bob Hewson.
Apple provided me with a preview of the movie, which I saw almost exclusively through Apple’s $ 3,499 mixed-reality headset. There was because of the way Apple insisted that I had access to the video, some tech errors (occasional freezing), but it was generally a deepening and often moving experience.
Shot almost exclusively in sharp black and white, the film is both a one-man oratorium and an occasional musical performance. Director Andrew Dominik uses Vision Pro’s expansive, almost 360-degree canvas to literally paint scenes around Bono, as the singer especially tells Irish tales about, for example, his mother died suddenly when he was just 14 and his father never spoke his wife’s name again.
The scene is a reserve with a little more than a few chairs, a table and a fake pint guinness. But Dominik uses Vision Pro’s native 3D -devoting abilities to decorate the stage and the picture.
With the help of 3D line drawing, Bono is even when he appears or speaks in front of a live audience, surrounded by points of texts, hand-drawn audience members or boxes and papers that seem to reach the sky above you.
This is not a concert or a U2 performance. Early on, Bono admits it is “almost offending” to be on stage without his bandmates. Instead, Bono is backed by Jacknife Lee Ensemble, which contains an electronic drum kit and a harpsichord/backup singer. It doesn’t sound much like much, but it works.
In fact, Bono, now 65, is in a fine voice, which is clear, loud and smooth. This will be less surprising when you are told that his father was a gifted tenor. Late in the movie, Bono makes some of his own operatic song, clearly a tribute to his late father.
There are some musical performances and even a few moments in the vision pro experience where you feel like you’re nose-to-nose with the iconic lead singer (it’s nervous), but most of the song is done to support the stories, or rather explain the stories the origin of songs like Pride. With or without youand Sunday, bloody Sunday.
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There is a decent amount of humor, especially a story about Luciano Pavarotti, but more importantly, you get the origin story of Bono’s musical interests and the formation of the band that coincided with meeting his wife of more than 40 years, Ali Hewson.
The documentary starts a little slowly and maybe melodramatic with Bono’s heart surgery in 2016, and although I am deeply grateful, Bono survived, I was worried that the whole of that approx. 90 minutes of doctor might have been a bit of a beat. Fortunately, the upright story was just the preamble, and soon Bono weaved an entertaining story about Hubris, battles and epiphanments.
However, it was frustrating to hear the story at the back I will follow And not get a full performance of the song. I admit I would have more of U2’s discography, though bono’s fresh interpretations, just like almost a cappella Sunday, bloody Sunday, was great.
In the end, this Bono: Stories of surrender Going too fast and it ends just as you feel you finally got to know the real bono, a short singer with great stories and, I think, an even bigger heart. He is still not a walking, but for the first time in 40 years I feel like I might just want to hang out with him.
As for Vision Pro, it made a brilliant job. 90 minutes is a long time to wear the mixed reality headset (it was down to 10% battery at the end), so be sure to have a comfortable fit. Mine is good (I use the double-loop band) even though I took a few breaks.
You can see Bono: Stories of surrender From today at either Vision Pro (for the special immersive experience) or on Apple TV+, where I suspect you will enjoy it as much.
