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.
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. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
