I'm Not There: A Fitting Ode to The Poetic Rebel review

Share

Who, rather what, is Bob Dylan? Musician, balladeer, poet, social commentator, star, enigma, hero -what exactly is he? For all his fans, he is all of this, and maybe much more than this. And fans he has in legions all over the world (in our part of the world, the most famous one, probably, is the 60-plus Low Majaw of the band The Great Society, a legend in himself in Meghalaya in North-East India and beyond as a musician, who since last nearly 30 years has been organizing Dylan's birthday every year without fail, the event now having grown so big that cinematographer Ranjan Palit has made a film on it for BBC).

So, when one plans a movie on the living legend, how does one approach it? - as a straight-forward, linearly told biopic, or as something that will capture the spirit of what Bob Dylan is all about. Todd Haynes chooses the second path, and comes up with I'm Not There (2007), a dramatic telling of Dylan's life story through seven characters who in a sense are various phases of the singer's life itself. A  recent NDTV Lumiere release in India, this is a film that has stars like Cate Blanchett and Richard Gere in its cast but traverses the path of an independent film, the kind that sort of uses Hollywood paraphernalia but develops its own identity beyond the studio products.

So, we have six actors who portray different phases in the life of the singer, who recently had faced the allegation of having "sold" his soul to commercialization when he allowed one of his songs to be used in a commercial. It's a film that is a feast for the mind - rather than eyes - of any fan of the troubadour, but if you are not a Dylan fan, you not only run the risk of being in a minority among music lovers but also of facing the proposition of not taking away home much from the film. The film liberally uses Dylan songs (including those sung by other singers - as they say, cover versions), but it is Cate Blanchett who steals the show, showing how gender is no barrier when it comes to soul stirring performance of a character from the opposite sex who has been so inspiring to generations the world over. Blanchett scorches the screen as the young, rebel Dylan, to put it very mildly. As Jude Quinn, who is a reflection of Dylan during his wild, young phase, Blanchett gives what is definitely one of her most authentic performances. Goosebumps is what you get when you watch Blanchett on the screen. And Haynes makes it even more special by making her segment black & white, some American critics even comparing it to the 1967 Dylan film Don't Look Back.

But then, every actor portraying different facets of Dylan's life have come up tops in this film, whether it is 14-year-old Marcus Carl Franklin, who plays Woody, a vagabond Black boy representing the spirit of Woody Guthrie and carrying a guitar case that has the words "This machine kills fascists" painted upon it, or Ben Whishaw as Arthur, again a tribute to another of Dylan's inspirations, the French poet Arthur Rimbaud. Or for that matter Christian Bale who portrays the 1960s folk icon Jack Rollins and Christian convert Pastor John, and the late Heath "The Joker" Ledger, who here is Robbie, an actor who plays Rollins in a movie within the movie, and Julianne Moore who acts out a Joan Baez-like character, and the ageing but superbly-maturing Richard Gere who becomes Billy the Kid here, representing in spirit Dylan's phase in Woodstock, New York post his horrifying motorcycle accident in 1966.

I'm Not There is a film that is more about the spirit of Dylan than Dylan the person, and that's where it scores. It's all about Dylan, but still Dylan is "not there", as the title suggests. For a movie that is about a man as restless as Dylan, it does pretty well for itself, with Haynes moving from one to the other segment effortlessly but with a restless flair for it. It's a film about someone who is an obsession for many, and it captures the soul of that spirit. It is what they call a fitting homage to a rebellious legend, whose life remains an enigma to the world even after listening to his poetic vision for the last 50-odd years. It's a thinking film, the kind that would make you ponder over the meaning of life.