What We Do is Secret
directed by Rodger Grossman
written by Rodger Grossman and Michelle Baer Ghaffari
starring Shane West, Bijou Phillips, Rick Gonzalez, Noah Segan, Ashton Holmes, Tina Majorino, Lauren German, Keir O’Donnell, Azura Skye

This scintillating punk rock bio pic reveals the intricacies and lacerations that fueled the seminal Germs and their temperamental lead singer Darby Crash (West).

The film mixes a documentary style with drama to illuminate the process of becoming something beyond what one was initially endowed with. Changing their names as readily as their hairstyles, the four central members of the Germs didn’t allow the fact that they could not play to dissuade them from taking to the stage. At the beginning in this film the music is certainly secondary to the pose. It is important enough at this stage to be actively doing something, anything, to stave off the ravishes of boredom that would otherwise consume a person. From the beginning Darby is a highly focused performer who agitates his audiences into responding whether fair or foul. He challenges the punk establishment by throwing food at members of the Damned in one of the Germs’s first gigs.

Essentially this film comes down hard against growing old. The characters in this film are all barely out of their teens and they achieve something that can never be refuted. Darby tells Laura Doom that “you are Laura Doom and nobody can take that away from you.” (Paraphrase). It’s absolutely true that these kids accomplish something in a few short years that continues to resonate all these years later. This film is a testament to how the will of one individual can infuse a small group of people with a tremendous desire to do great things. Darby admits to a great appreciation of Fascism although not its Nazi kid brother. There is a scene where Darby’s mom is sitting at a bar in a restaurant and he tries to get her attention but fails. The next shot shows him sitting alone reading Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil”. There’s a real sense that Darby was always a leader who controlled other children simply through the power of his charisma.

Darby Crash was born Jan Paul Beahm to an alcoholic mother that one of the interviewees in the film compares to something out of a John Waters movie. At the beginning of the film young Jan is being tossed out of school and shortly thereafter decides to form a band. He’d also decided at that time on a 5 year plan to become a legend. When asked what would follow the culmination of the plan he stated, “you’ll see.” Whether or not this included his deliberate suicide is of course in the grave with Darby but it doesn’t seem impossible considering his penchant for self-abuse both on and off the stage.

There is tremendous energy in this film and the music is played by the cast whose members were not all efficient enough on their instruments to effectively convey otherwise. The camera captures the initial audience boredom through exultation and delirium ending in numerous near riots amongst audience members. This feels like an authentic display of raw, unadulterated intensity and Darby comes off as a legitimately dangerous performer capable of anything on stage. He slices himself across the chest with a shard of glass and smashes a bottle over his head either to make some sort of statement or out of a desire to harm himself publically so his audience might respond sympathetically in some fashion.

Laura Doom (Phillips) is the band’s bassist and Darby’s eager confidant. There is a tension between them that plays out over the course of the film. Pat Smear (Gonzalez) is Darby’s oldest friend who repeatedly attempts to convince Darby to lay off the smack. Don Bolles (Segan) is the drummer who drove all the way to LA from Arizona with the singular ambition of becoming the Germs’s new drummer. The film follows the band from its earliest inception when Belinda Carlyle was a member (before they had even practiced) through a series of drummers that finally ended with Bolles.

Because of their reputation the Germs are banned from every club in L.A. This despite the creation of their first LP which is almost universally well received and considered a benchmark in punk rock. The film shows how quickly the Germs rise to the top and just how quickly they realize there is nothing more to be done in a town they are no longer welcomed in. As Darby’s heroin addiction rages there is a definite upset in the core essence of the band that culminates in Darby’s suicide at the age of 22. Darby makes a suicide pact with his friend Casey Cola (Skye) but she survives. The suicide his handled so delicately as David Bowie’s “Five Years” plays on the soundtrack. It’s one of those rare moments where the music ties everything in the film together perfectly. Darby says that he got his inspiration for his 5 year plan from the song.

Whatever his 5 year plan consisted of, over thirty years his highest expectations have been met. The Germs remain a universally lauded and innovative band that continues to inspire bored kids living in the suburbs to start something up regardless of their ability at the moment. This is perhaps Darby’s greatest legacy. Through the process of making music he taught others that talent alone will not get you there. One must be driven from within by a need to express the pain and hell that otherwise corrodes a person away slowly and imperceptibly.

The band is joined by a kid named Rob Henley (Holmes) who ingratiates himself with Darby and becomes quite close to him almost immediately. Rob is an inspiring drummer who wants nothing more than to be officially accepted as a Germ. His presence offers Darby an opportunity to explore his homosexual leanings although nothing concrete seems to come out of this potentiality. There is a scene between them where Rob is reading Darby’s lyrics and Darby moves in as to attempt a kiss. Rob rebuffs this attempt but later when Darby goes into the bathroom to check on the slash wound across his chest Rob follows him in, places his arms around Darby and kisses his shoulder. It’s an exceedingly tender moment that is fraught with exquisite tension.

The club scenes are consumed with tremendous energy as each performance is a celebration of animalistic urgency and a purity of expression that washes over each crowd. There is a real sense of communion between performer and audience and the quick cuts and mobile camera work provide the viewer with a genuine connection to the necessity of the music. Penelope Spheeris (Michele Hicks) approaches Darby with a request to film the Germs for her film “The Decline of Western Civilization”). She photographs the band in stark black and white creating an elegance of form that elevates the performance to the realm of poetry. In this scene Darby prowls the stage looking like a predatory animal seeking his prey. It’s a dynamic scene that solidifies Darby’s appeal as a performer and his role as a totemic shaman professing his own agonies for a crowd hungry for the image.

The performances in this film are all expertly rendered. Shane West captures the strength and vitality of Darby as well as his tendency toward Self destruction. It’s an explosive dichotomy that infuses the film with significance. Darby is both the mesmeric performer and the lost little boy seeking completion through the needle. Bijou Phillips is dynamic and forthright throughout the film. As Laura Doom she provides the audience with a highly motivated young woman who offers some well-needed maternal comfort to Darby who appears throughout the film to be estranged from his own mother. Rick Gonzalez offers forth a genuinely affable Pat Smears who routinely appears throughout the film to be a vital force that is clearly the bedrock of the band. Noah Segan plays Don Bolles as an exceedingly enthusiastic individual who performs with an intensity that carries through to the rest of the film. Ashton Holmes is perfectly cast as the classic outsider who desperately wants to fit in. Holmes provides the audience with a character who needs to belong and routinely offers forth evidence of this great need.

Overall, this film captures the spirit of performance as well as the development of a group of amateur musicians into one of the most significant punk bands in the world. It’s simply an example of how the germ of an idea, however farfetched it may initially appear, can make manifest an entire universe populated with those who are truly afflicted by the message. This is a film that carefully documents the life and death of a person who attacked his personal demons with a tenacity and sense of purpose that reached thousands of the similarly wounded. Darby Crash seems to have believed in the probability of his own martyrdom and most likely had no intention of carrying on and getting old once his mission was accomplished. It’s an example of the artist who makes a cult out of his own despondency and the heroin further eroded his connection to others and whatever it is that constitutes living.