Trainwreck: Woodstock 99

Netflix ★★★☆☆

Netflix’s three-part documentary series, Trainwreck: Woodstock 99, depicting the doomed revival of the 1969 peace-and-love festival, is a dark portrait of mob rule, exploitation and misogyny.

A brisk and often horrifying watch, Trainwreck ramps up the tension and sense of impending disaster. Each episode follows a day of the festival, using a ticking clock to count down to each catastrophe. Its organisers admit their intention was to make as much money as they could. Many crucial infrastructure tasks had been cheaply outsourced, and food and drink vendors were allowed to charge as much as they wanted. It was hot, there was minimal shade and 250,000 punters grew increasingly irate.

There were omens of an illtempered weekend from the start. The crowd was macho and aggressive, a “frat boy” culture dominating the event. Teenage girls talk about being groped. But, it isn’t until the final few minutes of the last episode that its terrible legacy – reports of multiple rapes – is fully addressed, to the distress of some who worked in the team, and the appalling defensiveness of others.

This is where Trainwreck reaches its limits. By the end, it is like a disaster movie. But surely there is more to be explored. Why did a music festival that was meant to stand as a statement against gun violence, in the aftermath of Columbine, collapse into such violence and misogyny? In the end, it doesn’t have the heart to go there in any depth, following the adrenaline-inducing spectacle of the fires and the riots instead.