Trainwreck: Woodstock 99′ (2022)

Woodstock 1969 promised peace and music, but its ’99 revival delivered days of rage, riots and real harm. Why did it go so horribly wrong?

THE DESTRUCTIVE ROAD TO GREED AND HAVOC

Netflix’s three-part episode documentary, produced by RAW production and BBH Entertainment, chronicles the failed organization of the promoters at Woodstock ’99 and showcases erratic behaviour.  The festival was produced by promoters who didn’t know how to finish the job. The creators of the festival tried to simulate the feeling of peace and love from the original festivities. That didn’t work.  Late Michael Lang contributes to the documentary as well as Artie Kornfeld, Joel Rosenman, and John P. Roberts.

This mini-series descends really into chaos with fires, rape, violence and drugs with nudity. MTV filmed the concert and festival with such details that it transfers you to Woodstock. Completing with interviews that retell throw the mob mentality creates a doomed event. People in the interviews compare the events to Planet of the Apes and The Lord of the Flies, referring to the kids burning down a sound tower. The miniseries also show the aftermath, reporting on the riots. The magnitude of the series chronicles the reaction and reflection of the promoters, producers, concertgoers, and MTV attendees with reporters.

The series, with barely two hours of runtime, sums pretty well. In the end, it concludes with the pros and cons revealing the worst of all of them; the rape of four women. The promoters don’t take any real responsibility, arguing that the riots and the looting were just a few from the crowd. No real security could possibly adjust to over 250.000 attendees. The pace is coherent with the editing and as it slowly comes down to the impact, the editing speeds up. The pace becomes more intense to make it more influential to the viewer. It’s an overall okay documentary that doesn’t necessarily show everything but gives an overview of the whole prospect of the Woodstock concert.

It’s wonderful docuseries that show both sides of the coin, which gives it a nuanced in the documentary collection of Netflix, which has decreased in quality slowly.