The film examines the band’s music and Mexico’s view of death, reflecting themes across their work after Fletch’s death
Depeche Mode fans will soon be able to relive the band’s Memento Mori world tour on Netflix. On Monday, the streaming platform announced it will stream Depeche Mode: M, the band’s concert film and documentary, starting Friday, Jan. 9.
The movie is half concert film, half documentary, directed by Fernando Friar, and follows the group during the band’s three shows at Mexico City’s Foro Sol in September 2023. The film explores not only the band’s music, but also Mexico’s cultural approach to understanding death — and how it mirrors themes that run through the group’s discography, especially in the wake of keyboardist Andy “Fletch” Fletcher’s death. The Memento Mori run marked the band’s first performances without Fletcher, who died in 2022 from an aortic dissection.
Depeche Mode: M serves as “a window into the band’s timeless global influence, and a powerful tribute to the unbreakable connection between music, tradition and the human spirit,” according to a band statement back in April. It also features narration from actor Daniel Giménez Cacho, as well as interviews with fans, artists, and other cultural commentators.
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Depeche Mode: M premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival back in June, before a theatrical release in October and a live album around the same time. Fans were previously able to rent and download the film online.
“Melancholy has long been an important part of the Depeche Mode experience… they’ve specialized in vulnerability. That openness, a sense of surrender, is the essential ingredient to Depeche Mode now,” read a Rolling Stone review of the album when it dropped. “Acknowledging mortality defines much of Memento Mori, but it never feels heavy-handed or even all that sullen. Some of the tracks even sound upbeat.”
