When the White Stripes do something, they do it fully, as was clear when Flux’s Cinema Tuesdays presented a special sneak-peek screening in Los Angeles of the Detroit-bred duo’s epically brilliant new concert documentary, Under The Great White Northern Lights, at the Egyptian Theater on Tuesday, March 9th. A live bagpiper heralded audience members as they entered and special red-and-black, White Stripes-themed cupcakes were also served. Yes, no detail goes unspared in making the vision of Meg and Jack White tangible, as the film itself makes abundantly clear. The White Stripes are one of the most gloriously idiosyncratic of all rock bands, doing things their way or the highway, and sometimes those highways are fascinatingly odd: Under The Great White Northern Lights captures moments from the pair’s extensive nationwide 2007 tour of Canada—not just the big cities like Toronto and Vancouver, but also smaller out of the way places in the Yukon like Yellowknife, and an Inuit reservation—places, director Emmett Malloy noted in a Q&A after the screening, that many Canadians don’t even go to.

In addition to the more typical rock shows depicted, the White Stripes played a free, impromptu show in each town, from a show in Newfoundland where they literally played one note (the audience chanting “one more note” as they exited the stage) to a hootenanny on a Winnipeg city bus. Indeed, it’s these moments, and the pauses between concert sequences, that prove most revelatory—like an offhand moment capturing Jack playing boogie-woogie piano backstage while Meg smokes and bobs her head to the rhythm, the chat with a city mayor about the gory joys of local buffalo hunting, or watching Jack White eat (and enjoy) raw caribou. The little details prove deliriously charming as well—like the Canadian flags custom appliquéd to White’s amps, or the fact that Meg’s drum stool has her name emblazoned on it in leather (as if it could be anybody else’s). The film’s style also perfectly suits the subject. Malloy shoots the band in varying patchwork film stocks, alternating between video, grainy black and white and color sixteen millimeter film; even the color sequences have a shockingly lurid, graphic quality that suits the band’s aesthetic just peachy. As well, the editing creates a perfect rhythm: a jump-cut medley proves utterly kinetic, but the action also lingers when necessary to render a moment. Most of all, Under The Great White Northern Lights distills the awesome, visceral power of the White Stripes’ live playing, whether banging out “Icky Thump” in a packed hall, or finger-picking a Blind Willie McTell blues in a reservation rec room. The band’s homemade charisma and sheer work ethic also bleeds through, and staggeringly so; as Malloy noted in the Q&A, “Your brain starts to forget there’s only two people doing it.” The Canada tour was set up to honor the White Stripes’ first decade of existence, and there are candid, fly-on-the-wall sequences, like when Meg White sheds a tear as she sits next to Jack playing a heartfelt piano, but Malloy doesn’t give away too much. Best of all, from the light, humorous moments to the energetic concert sequences, the film manages to impart everything great about the White Stripes without taking away the mystery that makes the duo so compelling—if anything, it adds to it. “Watching the film, you get a little more, but you still know nothing about this band, which is why we all love them so much,” Malloy stated, and he couldn’t be more correct.