Stuck Inside a Bio-Pic with the Post-Modern Blues Again

Rating: 2/10 (26 May 2008)

From the onset, 'I'm Not There' will leave you reeling with post-modern malaise. Countless referencing and pastiches of cinematic milestones such as '2001', '8 ½', 'Stardust Memories', 'If.', 'The Man Who Fell to Earth', 'Whity', 'Breathless', 'Week End' as well as the slate of Dylan documentaries ('Eat the Document', 'Don't Look Back', 'The Other Side of the Mirror', 'No Direction Home') and Dylan's own 'Renaldo and Clara' and 'Masked and Anonymous' films, anyone with the slightest knowledge of both Dylan and classic cinema will be suffering cultural vertigo.
It's hard to see who this film is appealing to. Dylan die-hards will be groaning at the pedantic references and those with only a casual interest in the great man will be scratching their heads to make anything of it at all. For such an obvious film, one is left with no more knowledge of Dylan than before. Even the most mundane bio-pics (which this seems to be consciously reacting against) can have knack of propelling interest in a subject, but newbies will probably not be enticed to investigate any further after enduring this mess.
Although a handsome looking production (showing none of the corner cutting that was only too obvious in the similarly misguided 'Velvet Goldmine') and well scored with plenty of great original Dylan recordings, even these assets seem to be a crutch. The songs come so thick and fast it's as if Haynes is using them as some sort of glue to hold our interest along with the pretty photography. And for all its purported experimentalism, the film remains highly derivative and obvious. The heavy handed use of Dylan lyrics as dialogue is deeply cringe-worthy, as are the sledgehammer visual clues (such as the tarantula  itself a reference to a shot in Ingmar Bergman's 'Persona' - walking across the screen during shots of Blanchett's Dylan writing).
Most embarrassing of all are the celebrity performances. Christian Bale is truly terrible, covering the folk-troubadour Dylan and (an in-joke perhaps?) the "Christian" Dylan like a bad comedian. Cate Blanchett is a pretty impressive mimic in general (witness her Kate Hepburn in 'The Aviator') but her performance falls hopelessly apart every time she opens her mouth, as her uncanny physical approximation is shattered by her all too self-conscious whine.
Most pointless of all are Ben Whishaw's 'Rimbaud' (groan), who serves no real purpose other than to get some sloganeering across, and the Heath Ledger/Charlotte Gainsbourg subplot which only serves to bog things down. This is exasperated by the fact that Ledger's character is actually that of an actor who played the role of Bale's fictional Dylan in a movie within the movie (if that makes any sense!) It's obviously modelled on the domesticated, Woodstock-era Dylan but just what it achieves by being at a further remove from its source is something lost entirely on this viewer.
To be sure, there's an interesting film essay to be made about Dylan (if any more really need be documented on the great man) but it ain't this, babe.