No one, it seems, has figured out how to save a music documentary from the old-photo-talking-head-concert format, and that includes director Joe Angio. So the interest depends on the subject, and the Mekons, a seminal punk band founded in 1977 by art students in Leeds, England, are a fortunate choice.

For one thing, some of their best songs are from the past seven years or so. They started out untrained (a polite way of saying they could barely play), and evolved into a unique sound born from what someone describes on camera as “playing country music and getting it totally wrong.” “Success is usually the thing that kills bands,” one band member cheerfully observes. “We haven’t had any success.”

In a way, this marvelous movie does show that the Mekons have declined, because they’ve become the one thing punk rockers never ever want to be: lovable.