The Wall tells the story of Pink; a burnt out rock star who has retreated into himself. Told in a non-linear fashion we see how he is effected by the loss of the father he never knew in the war; cruel teachers; a wife who leaves him; the adulation of his fans and too many drugs and finally how he grows to see himself as a fascist demagogue.

This is a far from conventional film; there is a minimal amount of dialogue. Instead the story is told through the images we see and the music of Pink Floyd. The images are a mix of conventional live action shots of Pink's life; images of war and animation designed by Gerald Scarfe. This is sometimes tragic and sometimes brutally disturbing. The scenes we see perfectly match the music; adding something to what isn't there on the album in a way that makes it hard to just listen without recalling the imagery. The animated sequences demand separate mention; they are creative and shocking in a way one doesn't expect in western animation; they contain a sense of bleakness, brutality and even flowers that border on pornographic! Overall I'd say that this is a must see for fans of Pink Floyd and for those looking for something different who don't mind being disturbed.

Alan Parker has always had a gift for the integration of music and film, and his efforts over the years have reflected that. Movies like "Fame" & "The Commitments" have made him a director more remembered for his music video skills than his storytelling, even though he directed gripping controversial more seriously films, like "Midnight Express," and "Mississippi Burning."

"The Wall" tells the account of a rock star's breakdown, Pink Floyd slowing down into madness... Pink's madness is illustrated with living flashbacks of his life... He has visions of his childhood from a baby held in the cradle to his present moment... We have little Pink suffering from alienation for the death of his father in the war, and taken under the care of his mother... We have also rock and roll star Pink, who is destroyed by his evident insanity and is driven over the edge by his wife's infidelity and we have a blown insane Pink, a Nazi dictator under the Hammer Regime leading a series of occurrences like raping, breaking and pillaging...

Alan Parker translates the music into memorable images that are insensible to love or pity... All of Pink's life is projected on the screen... We see and hear songs altered from an abstract concept into a disgusting vision of students being thrown into a meat grinder...

Pink constructs the wall by building up tension... In mixing up sexuality and violence, he creates a new window into Pink's character... The animated sequences that reflected Pink's foolishness are important and influential...

Alan Parker's direction moves the story cleverly from the present into the past and into a possible future, drawing a warning, but still contemplating traumas of a child with hurtful effects on the fully grown man... The result is a mad piece of cinema, a kind of a bad dream becoming even worse than usual...

The film exploits great special effects, some frightful and impossible to understand... The music praises the film so well from declaring noisy rock and roll music to quiet ballads of insanity...

Bob Geldof is amazing as Pink, the British rock star broken in pieces under the psychological pressure of an American Tour...

Pink Floyd-The Wall is a bizarre animation reinforcing its vision of an insane, inhumane, unjust and cruel world, not easy to follow...

The film stands out as one of the classic in the teenage scene, specially teenagers who take or receive narcotic and due to its psychedelic nature leaves you greatly depressed...

The opening tracking shot of a hotel hallway that resembles a prison should clue you in as to what awaits. There are so many things to like and be fascinated by in this movie. And for all of its avant-garde leanings, this is actually a very classically designed story. An iconoclastic music star, Pink Floyd, tries/tries not to think about his past and how he got to where he is, which is borderline psychotic. And because he's so disturbed, he can't even think in a linear way, so the journey we take into his mind is necessarily whacked-out.

We also get to see how fascism is born from misdirected hate and idolatry. As a rock star, Floyd has seen the adulation of his audiences, so he's familiar with the phenomenon. But at the same time, he detests them for buying into his act. It's like the old Groucho Marx joke about refusing membership to any group who would let you in. He knows he's a fake (his teachers and people like his wife have told him so), so everyone else who thinks he's real must be fakes also. It's a big cyclic game. So he can't let any of them in, behind his wall, because they are, by definition, phony.

It's interesting, also, to think about how he has turned full circle into fascism. It's just part of his dream and how he deals with his anger, but it's also an interesting reaction to the absent father. Had there been no homosexuals or Jews etc., there would have been no need for a Hitler, and therefore there would have been no need for his father to die. But instead of hating Nazis, he hates the people that "provoked" the Nazis. (I could go on for days with stuff like this, but I'll stop here.)

Just watch the movie and be impressed with the way it works on so many levels.