During the q-and-a session after a screening of the documentary Global Metal at the Royal, a young Iranian woman tried to choke out her thoughts between sobs.

She was just so grateful to see some Iranian metal musicians featured in the film, considering that when she goes to metal shows here, "I'm the only one who's not white."

Welcome to the new, expanded tribe.

This doc by Toronto-based directors directors Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn follows up on their 2005 effort Metal: A headbanger's Journey. My capsule review of the time:

Metal: A headbanger's journey: All the MSM capsule reviews I saw dissed it. Don't believe the snipe. This was a fine doc, made from a fan's perspective, but it covers all the bases and talks to many of the genre's great characters. Well worth a look.

In the wake of that film, Dunn -- the amiable but clear-eyed frontman of the film -- got emails from fans around the globe thanking him for showing their music some respect and telling him about the metal scene in their countries.

Metal was born in the late 1960s in grimy, dismal, English industrial cities such as Birmingham, spawned by blue-collar kids. In the first film (if I remember correctly), Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath described his nabe as "a shithole."

Brazil of the 1960s and 1970s was a repressive hellhole, run by a right-wing military dictatorship. In 1985, the dictatorship ended. By coincidence, the Rock In Rio festival was held that year, featuring bands like the Scorpions, Whitesnake and Iron Maiden.

For young Brazilian metal fans, this was heaven. An estimated 1.3 million people attended Rock in Rio I, and to the surprise of organizers, Metal Day was the biggest day of them all.

One year before that, Sepultura had formed, led by Brazilian brothers Max and Igor Cavalera. At Rock in Rio II in 1991, Sepultura would themselves be on the main stage.

An important part to the Sepultura story is how they integrated the music of Brazil's native peoples into one album, Roots, illustrating the film's thesis that while metal might be universal, domestic scenes are finding ways to make it their own.

You can see the same phenomenon in Beijing, where a small metal scene is sprouting even though no major metal band has ever played a show in that giant country.

Japan's wild pop culture environment has manifested itself in a breathtaking glam metal scene. A relatively high proportion of the audience are young women, which is unusual, considering metal is largely seen as a boy's club.

Some clips of Bollywood movies were shown during the Mumbai, India segment. One young metal fan described such fluff as sucky, and probably spoke for metal fans the world over when he said, "I want my music to be strong."

Images from Jakarta show sleek highrises not far from slums beside fetid, open sewers. Sepultura has a big fan base, largely because they are a Third World band, and their song's themes -- which can be almost punkish in how they speak about social justice issues -- resonate with other Third World people.

Indonesian metal fans described being beaten by police with bamboo sticks as they tried to get into a Metallica show.

In the film's most disturbing scene, one Indonesian metal performer (Indonesia is the largest Muslim country on Earth) talks about Israel has to be wiped off the face of the Earth -- nothing against the Jewish people, mind you, just Zionism. :( The theatre fell silent.

Jewish metal musicians in Jerusalem apparently corresponded a bit with Norwegian black metallist Varg Vikernes, who told them Hitler should have finished the job. When they responded in kind, they next heard from the police, who asked them if they had any enemies in Norway. Why do you ask? Because someone had sent them a bomb in the mail.

Vikernes is serving a 21-year sentence in connection with a 1993 murder and at least three church burnings.

The regional Arab musicians featured in Dubai (the filmmakers couldn't get visas to enter Iran) loved the music, but there didn't appear to be much evidence of particular hatred towards Israel. Most had their own stories of facing oppression from the authorities.

Bruce Dickinson, the legendary singer of Iron Maiden, basically put it this way: Kids the world over want to get their emotions out. They want to bang their heads.

The Arab kids also credit the Internet with exposing them to this music in the first place. A few admitted to downloading tunes "illegally" -- something to which Metallica drummer Lars Ullrich grudgingly gave his approval (if you remember, Metallica had sued Napster).

I enjoyd Dunn's and McFayden's world tour of this subculture -- and they picked some kicking songs for the soundtrack! (You can never go wrong with vintage material like Highway Star or Two Minutes To Midnight).

The film suffers slightly by way of omission in some cases, but that's bound to occur when you boil 300 hours of footage down to 93 minutes.

I felt the ending could have been punched up a bit, and that the editing could have been improved here and there, but those are quibbles.  If you're at all interested in the subject matter, you'll enjoy the film.

Afterthought

I buttonholed Dunn after the screening and asked a question that has haunted me since his first film: Metal really broke big in the public consciousness at about the same point in the 1980s that WWF (now WWE) wrestling did? Coincidence or not?

In a way, I see a linkage, because both are about power and theatrical spectacle (this also happened during the rise of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, but I didn't bring that point up).

Dunn seemed rather bemused by the question, but he did say he didn't think it was a coincidence that most wrestlers used metal as their intro music when they entered the arena.