Directing: B
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B

I had somewhat mixed feelings about Moonage Daydream while I was watching it. But now, as it lingers and stays with me after the film has ended, it seems to gain value in retrospect.

There is no other movie like this one, which is apropos given that there was, and always will be, only one David Bowie. Plenty of artists have been inspired by him, but none have matched his singularity. Written, directed, and edited by Brett Morgen, Moonage Daydream provides a visual portrait of Bowie’s overall career. And even as someone who never actually bought any of the man’s albums (his record sales peaked when I was seven), I felt like I left the theater with a real sense of Bowie’s artistic essence.

Even for a man whose many personas rivaled that of Madonna, David Bowie had an almost ethereal presence that served as a through line between all of them. This is a documentary that exists in a nebulous space between “concert film” and straightforward narrative, the closest thing to a linear path being that it covers the broad strokes of Bowie’s career in chronological order.

Morgen does heavily focus on the first fifteen years or so of Bowie’s career, with an overview of the nineties serving almost as a coda, before barely touching on his death. Perhaps I’m in the minority here, but I am always interested in what was going on in the lives of these artists during downtime, or lulls, in their careers. The assumption always seems to be that audiences won’t be interested, but a skilled storyteller can make any story fascinating if it’s just told the right way. Skipping years of a person’s life because it’s assumed we won’t find it interesting seems like a copout.

Then again, a feature film can hardly fully encapsulate anyone’s entire lifetime, and Moonage Daydream is arguably overlong, clocking in at 135 minutes—particularly long for a documentary film. This one is designed to be “immersive,” and I actually went to see it at an IMAX theater as was ostensibly the intent. Seeing this on that huge screen was cool, sure, but IMAX theater tickets are more expensive, and I would hesitate to say the negligible difference from a conventional theater screen is worth the premium price.

What I can say about this movie is that it paints an impressive portrait of a famously enigmatic man, composed entirely of exclusive archival footage. There are no talking heads here, no interviews conducted for the purpose of this film—only clips of old interviews, and audio recordings of Bowie’s musings. We get brief insights into his private life and his upbringing, through this tactic alone. Best of all, we get a large amount of live concert footage, illustrating how Bowie must have been a spectacular live performer. I wish I could have seen one of his concerts.

We learn about his many artistic pursuits besides music. We see clips from several of his many movie roles (alas, just one brief shot of him as the Goblin King in Labyrinth). We hear him discussing how moving to an entirely new city pushes him to write in a new way, from Los Angeles (because he “detests” it) to West Berlin (because “rock star trappings” mean nothing there). We see his visual evolution, from openly discussing bisexuality while wearing makeup and platform shoes in the early seventies, to a middle-aged man in basic pants and a button-up shirt. No matter how “basic” his wardrobe got, however, he had a face that was uniquely as attractive as it was severe, giving him an almost otherworldly look.

All of this is rapid-fire edited together, rarely in a linear fashion, more of a kaleidoscope of images, swirling from one era of Bowie’s career to the next. It’s a bit of a sensory overload, especially for a film of this length; it’s like watching a music video marathon with no breaks. Still, there’s a surprising depth to Moonage Daydream as a completed work, making it at least somewhat greater than the sum of its seemingly infinite parts.

*It’s not that hard to imagine this guy being rom outer space.*

Overall: B