Cast: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Marcus Carl Franklin, Ben Wishaw, Richard Gere, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams

Director: Todd Haynes

Screenplay: Todd Haynes

Running time: 2 hrs 16 mins

Genre: Biopic/Drama


REVIEW:


In a typical Hollywood music-biopic, it’s as common as a universally accepted truth that it features a troubled artist, plucking their strings (ehem, Johnny Cash) or prodding their piano keys (cough, Ray), whilst hopelessly buried in drugs and booze, and in a miraculous stint, it all ends with a gloriously uplifting recovery spell. Todd Haynes thought better. Almost an experimental stunt that could probably result to an embarrassing act, he chose not just one but six actors to portray the convoluted portrait of American folk-hero Bob Dylan. Not to mention, the involvement of an Aussie actress to play one of the personas of the subject. Now, we haven’t heard of this thing before, but as soon as it’s been canned and shown, not only does Bob Dylan himself bestow his mighty approval – but the result is nothing short of an enigmatic wonder. I’M NOT THERE, along with its peculiar hell of a title with people squawking about its main point, distances itself from the humdrum formula of everyday biopic. Here is a rare film of ingenuity, blending pictures, montages, bizarre plotting, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scenes, riffs, cuts, sounds and a whole lotta more like an amalgamation of a collage, part jigsaw puzzle that when it’s all put up together gives us a portrait of an accomplished persona, the man himself, Dylan.


We start with the intriguing presence of Marcus Carl Franklin, whose character was adeptly named Woody Guthrie, lifted from Dylan’s folk-singer idol. It’s a notable performance from this kid; however, it seethes questions as to why it’s played by a black actor. People who didn’t know Dylan’s music burns with this riddle, but it is his representation of the cultural issues amongst the black that is clearly embodied here. Next, we jig into the psyche of Christian Bale as folk-singer-turned-preacher Jack Rollins, whose part is played in a mockumentary that’s almost as effective that one wouldn’t expect it in a film as this. Then there’s Ben Wishaw spilling out poetic philosophies in monochromatic interviews, appropriately named as Arthur Rimbaud, Dylan’s favourite poet. It’s an eminent thing to hear the words out of this mouth: “Everything is caused by nature... but I am against nature.”


Biopics never get as confusing as this, as the story goes on with Heath Ledger as Robbie Clark, an actor whose marriage was hanging by a thread, reverberating Dylan’s uneasy relationships. Then there’s Richard Gere, perhaps the most innocuous and insignificant performance in the film, playing Billy the Kid, echoing Dylan’s appearance in Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garret And Billy The Kid.


The performances are truly remarkable, with Bale ever so consistent in his career choices, Ledger shredding his gruff and surfacing a vulnerably human Dylan, Franklin, with an illustrious cinematic appeal, giving one of this year’s best kid acting next to ATONEMENT’s Briony Tallis by Saoirse Ronan, but it’s Cate Blanchett that steals all the limelight away from them. It is indeed an off-the-wall irony that the best caricature of the folk-singer Dylan as a man is played by no one else but a woman. Blanchett, here, is set to recreate the records and point to that podium of greatness by this electrifying performance that’s as nearly as legendary as Dylan himself, defying the gravity of the art of acting, as though she’s pushing the walls and limits of performing abilities. Damn, this woman. Hell hath no fury than a woman scorned indeed. She pitch-perfectly personified the mentality of Dylan, as he turned from acoustic-delivering messiah to rock-and-roll electronica romp, spitting lyrics of cynicism, resulting to the years of disappointment of fans. For people questioning if Blanchett is too effeminate to portray Dylan, they should be asking themselves instead, for Blanchett represents the skinny, almost androgynous physicality of the singer himself uncannily in his misunderstood, rock years. Having won the Golden Globes Best Supporting Actress for this proves enough that it’s a certainty for a more prestigious one, come Oscar time.


It is also this film’s style that proves creative. Blanchett’s period is shot in black-and-white (a jackpot decision to intensify Blanchett’s ruggedness with her boyish couldn’t-care swagger and blank looks on the screen as though she was constantly asking us in silence “Do you understand me? I think not.”), Franklin and Gere’s parts were in rich, countryside colours, Bale in his documentary-like montages, and Wishaw in a radical monochrome.


If you’re expecting for answers about Bob Dylan, or expecting a vertically told tale, then you’re in for a disappointment. What you are about to see is like a boomerang, things are thrown into the air without so much explanation, and it comes back to you with questions still left unanswered. After all, this is Bob Dylan we’re talking about, a man too complex a character that it has to be played by different people to combine into the concluding persona. It’s one of those difficult films to sink in with, and some people might suffer for its longeur. However, if you’d appreciate a film that is truly unique, peerless and cerebrally provoking, with added touches of silly humour, poetic justice, heartbreak and humanity, this is a film worth drifting into, leaving us the dazzle of Dylan’s enigmatic complexity as soon as the real person is shown at the fading end of the film.


VERDICT:


I’M NOT THERE is a one hell of a film fan’s film. It’s irritating, complicated, mystifying... after all, it’s the man himself that defines this film. An artistic, creative portrait of a multi-persona, experimentally brilliant as it is wonderfully deep. One of the year’s best artistic pursuits. It’s what Picasso had done to Guernica as to what Todd Haynes created in this work of art.



RATING: A-