We see four men – lanky, floppy-haired, tufted with goatees – sporting Converses and Pink Floyd T-shirts. They play air guitar and air drums; they make the sign of the horns with their hands. They’re into Metallica logos, and they rehearse atonal noise in a graffitied basement riddled with spiders and mice. ‘Where did you learn to play drums?’ asks an off-screen Australian voice. ‘Nowhere,’ replies Pedram, the drummer.
Music documentaries have covered the myth of the lost, fallen artist before – Finding Fela (Alex Gibney, 2014), No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (Martin Scorsese, 2005), countless Kurt Cobain tales. They’re redemption fables, often. Australian filmmaker Travis Beard’s RocKabul (2018), however, follows an aspiring metal band from first rehearsal, to first gig, to final downfall. District Unknown was, in the early…