The Rise of the Synths (2019) on Netflix
NR20191h 22mDocumentary
Synthwave's rise from an underground online scene to retro-themed film and television soundtracks. A lone driver, the Synth Rider, time-travels in a DeLorean to guard the pioneers' legacy.
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- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.0/10493 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
This first feature documentary on the genre traces synthwave from an underground online scene toward mainstream attention, helped by retro-themed music in film and television. Artists from the scene, established and newer, describe their inspirations, which reach back to early electronic pioneers and to a shared affection for 1980s films and video games. Many of them appear on camera for the first time, and a few keep their faces or voices hidden. Running through the documentary is the Synth Rider, a solitary figure who drives a DeLorean and travels from the 1980s back through the decades, guided by a narrator's voice recorded on cassette, on a mission to preserve the legacy of the electronic pioneers.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Rise of the Synths (2019)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Iván Castell created the Synth Rider, the film's time-traveling DeLorean driver, for a mood trailer meant to catch producers' attention, and the character was never supposed to appear in the finished documentary; it worked so well he wrote him into the film.
- Synthwave fans adopted the name of the film's fictional character as their own: the term Synthrider was taken up organically by the community to describe themselves, and from 2016 it appeared as a hashtag on Twitter and Instagram profiles.
- Many of the synthwave musicians interviewed had never been on camera before, and several of them, including Power Glove, Carpenter Brut, Gost and MPM Soundtracks, insisted on keeping their faces or voices concealed or masked.
- The Rise of the Synths is the first feature documentary about synthwave, the underground electronic music genre that grew from an online scene to mainstream use in retro-themed film and TV soundtracks.
