Moonage Daydream: Film Review
Calling Brett Morgen‘s Moonage Daydream a documentary would be a disservice. Sure, it illuminates the life and music career of David Bowie – just like a documentary – but it is so much more than that. Maybe even too much.
This is the film about the iconic singer – who died in 2016 – to be officially authorised by his estate, which granted Morgen access to an archive of five million different items, such as never-before-seen footage, recordings, art, and much more. There is a narrative in there somewhere but it disappears every so often to indulge in the “experiential cinematic odyssey” part of the movie. It tells his story very loosely with a vague chronological order and is essentially all told in Bowie’s own words.
I want to start off by acknowledging that Moonage Daydream is a staggering technical achievement. The sound design and mixing, the editing and the psychedelic kaleidoscope of colours on the screen are all impressive and it must have taken years to assemble all the footage into a feature. From a technical viewpoint, I cannot fault it.
But dear me, this film is an overwhelming experience. As Bowie often did, Morgen takes the maximalist approach and there are times when it is very loud and there are images popping up on the screen at a rapid-fire rate. They aren’t always related to Bowie; it’s imagery to invoke a certain mood and signify a particular time in history. It is trippy, experimental work and an assault on the senses at times.
The film isn’t like that the entire way through, thankfully. I wasn’t sure about it at first as it seemed to be an onslaught of images without a solid foundation and I experienced sensory overload. But luckily, it relaxes (slightly) when it finds the narrative. It goes off on an experimental tangent every so often and I always preferred it when it gravitated back towards the narrative.
I didn’t know much about Bowie beyond his most popular songs and didn’t come away feeling like I knew him a whole lot better, although I enjoyed watching him respond to questions in old interviews. This movie isn’t really striving for deep insight into the icon – Bowie was an elusive, unknowable man in public after all – and feels more like a collage of his highlights. It seems like Morgen was aiming to capture the essence of Bowie more than anything else.
Moonage Daydream is a mind-blowing celebration of Bowie’s legacy that honours his boundary-breaking unconventional ways and features his tunes as the non-stop soundtrack. It might be out there, a bit too much and slightly too long (I glazed over a bit towards the end), but you wouldn’t expect anything less from a Bowie movie, would you? It’s a visionary, one-of-a-kind experience which perfectly aligns with its subject.
Exclusively in IMAX from Friday 16th September and wide release from Friday 23rd September