something different (at last)

Rating: 8/10 (29 December 2007)

Biopic: the word makes me shudder. I guess it makes Todd Haynes do something similar, or otherwise he wouldn't have come up with this fascinating movie inspired by the life and work of Bob Dylan. Essentially a film-maker's imaginative response to the man and the songs, it is something of a cinematic equivalent to Don Maclean's song American Pie, in which a whole era is celebrated and lamented in a lyrical, sometimes densely coded, piece of writing. Whether I'm Not There will last as long as American Pie (the song, not the movie of the same name!) only time will tell. But I'm pretty sure that when cultural historians look back and view the usual sentimental dross claiming to document the life of this or that artist, I'm Not There will shine out, a beacon in a dark sea of mediocrity. While it is true that not all of this film works, most of it is beautiful and absorbing and, in the case of Cate Blanchett, dazzling.
As well as the excellent sextet of Dylans, there's poignant support from Charlotte Gainsbourgh, and contrastingly from Bruce Greenwood giving another of his splendid vipers.
All power to Todd Haynes. The man, like his subject, is a poet.