One More Time with Feeling

I came late to Nick Cave, but the premise of this documentary piqued my interest soon after its release. Owing to the restriction of the initial 'one night only' showing, I wasn't able to catch it until now.

Having watched it on DVD, I can now honestly say I am glad I have done so. Nick Cave is a very interesting man, and he demands a certain respect which is evident in the way this documentary has been made.

The use of black and white cinematography is jarring at first, but it soon becomes apparent that this is the only way it could be.

The documentary feels intimate, but manages not to be voyeuristic - a triumph by Dominick and his team.

There is much here for the Cave fan, the casual viewer and the creative alike.

To call One More Time With Feeling a great achievement and leave it at that would be to ignore just how unique it is in a vast sea of documentaries. Instead of being about the death of Nick Cave's son and treating that as the primary subject, the film revolves around Nick Cave's creative process and in the meantime how his personal loss affected that process. There are a lot of philosophical ideas going around, so even though the premise and structure of the film is simple, it's a very weight film to experience. Andrew Dominik can create an atmosphere like no other (for an example, see The Assassination of Jesse James) and here he's able to so perfectly capture the kind of thoughtful ideas and imagery that are associated with Cave's internal process. This is a great one and not to be missed.

The premiere of 20,000 Days on Earth, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard's 2014 documentary about musician and author Nick Cave, was preceded by red carpet pizazz, and the irreverent film itself ended – beside the sea – with an optimistic message of boundless hope and creativity.

It's these memories that make Andrew Dominik's mesmeric new documentary even sadder. We're used to seeing the elegant, lyrical Cave effortlessly turning horror into romance. But here we see him slouched in a tracksuit top, unsure what to say or do to console his grieving wife, who clutches a painting that their son, Arthur, drew when he was five.

Our knowledge of the fate of Arthur Cave, who fell to his death last year aged 15, is assumed and it looms over the film like a literal shadow. Shot almost entirely in monochrome, the mood is mournful throughout, punctuated by the briefest levity, usually between Cave and Warren Ellis, his long-time collaborator.

The film makes few narrative concessions. There's no dramatic moment when the bad news comes through. No crash zooms on crying faces. Early on, Cave reflects on something Ellis has said: that past, present and future exist all at once. And this is how it feels in the final edit, as we never know which footage (if any) is from before the tragedy and which came after.

We are given no names in subtitles and the context is barely explained. It's not informative in the typical sense. This isn't a criticism but a fact. Rather than a charting of specific events, One More Time With Feeling is a document of mood and emotion. Punctuating this texture are studio recordings. The tracks from The Bad Seeds' new LP, Skeleton Tree, released the day after this one- off cinematic event, are universally downbeat: looping, suffocating, darkly ambient swirls and tragic piano descents. More than ever, the lyrics are aching and sometimes abstract. Cave is the master of effective verbal repetition; and, as he mentions at one point, no line is wasted. Dominik lets four or five tracks play out in full while his camera prowls the moody studio darkness. His direction is tasteful, atmospheric, and sensitive.

And necessarily so, because the feelings are raw. Cave talks unbearably movingly about the impossibility of softening his grief with lyrics. (I was reminded of Theodor Adorno's comment about how there can be no poetry after Auschwitz.) He's also coming to terms with the fact that the trauma cannot be escaped, such is its "elastic" grasp, always pulling the bereaved back. However eloquently Cave has sung or spoken about death and loss in the past, the situation here is obviously something profound and unique, and the aftermath is a maze of indefinable despair, beyond the best poet.

Watch with caution, for this is a difficult documentary which is not designed to console or comfort. It exists to draw you unsentimentally into the sombre rhythm of grief. Yet the fact that a perfectly calibrated and deeply moving work of art could come out of such a moment in an artist's life does, on some level, leave us with a kind of hope.

I wouldn't call myself a Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds fanboy, more like a passer-by who appreciates what he has heard of their works especially Cave and Warren Ellis's works providing film scores over recent years, so perhaps One More Time with Feeling doesn't mean as much to me as it would to long serving fans that have been with the band since their inception.

This music documentary that centres almost entirely around Cave in the recording studio working on the Skeleton Tree album is directed by Australian filmmaker Andrew Dominik and the Chopper and Assassination of Jesse James overcomes the disappointing reception of his last feature film Killing Them Softly to deliver a beautifully captured documentation of the album making process that also happens to touch upon the tragic loss of Cave's son Arthur that turned his world upside down.

There's nothing typical about Cave the musician and Cave the human and Dominik's film follows the mantra to a tee with Cave allowed to provide rambling voice overs and deep life pondering monologues on camera to fill in blanks but it would've been more effective for a watcher like myself had Dominik and Cave himself toned down the ponderous to instead talk more to the everyman as much of the diatribe or deep musings end up becoming a little too much to bare.

One thing that never gets hard to bare however is Dominik's directing style (unfortunately the version of the film I watched wasn't in the intended 3-D format) and the filmmaker uses his cinematic senses to great effect as the camera invades and wanders the recording studio. There is also little denying the power of some of Cave and his bands work here with members like the majestical Warren Ellis combining with Cave to deliver some heart-wrenching and soul searching songs born out of unimaginable loss and if nothing else, these musical moments make One More Time with Feeling worth the price of admission.

Final Say –

An absolute must for fans of Cave and his music, this anything but a by the numbers music doco is an intimate look into the bands creative sensibilities and a sometimes touching portrait of a man touched by grief. If however there was a little less airplay given to various and overlong ramblings, One More Time with Feeling would've been a film for everyone, not just those willing to nod in approval to every little word Cave speaks.

3 forgotten piano chords out of 5

I'm sure the reviews for this film will vary depending on how one expects to view films in contrast to how one views life and that marriage between the two finds a rare audience - however, what is amazing about this film is also what is heart wrenching / bordering on horrific - the back story.

The cinema for many is the "first in line" method of entertainment. yes, you could be a 'fan' of the actor/actress/artist but when you go to the movies, you expect to be entertained or perhaps 'enlightened'. This film however in my over 50 years on this planet, does not fall into that category. In fact, this film is, if not one of a kind, falls in the handful of those that are. This comes as a connoisseur of films together with being a musician, fan, promoter and DJ who spun many a Nick Cave song and still does.

This film is harrowing. I almost in some form, put this up there with "Saving Private Ryan" for those who have been a part of Nick's music for decades while adding exponentially the weight of also having children and being an artist. When I watched this film debut in Sacramento a few weeks back, I knew the score. I read the stories of his son's death and I read the stories of his thoughts during the filming of this movie... how some parts were edited out due to their nature.... I feel leaving those in would of resulted in actually needing grief counselors in the isles ala "Saving Private Ryan"...

This film is NOT something you take a date to. Not something a 'Nick Cave Fan' would go see. You will be intrigued but slightly disappointed thinking you were supposed to see a film about being entertained. You will feel uncomfortable in thinking "Am I missing something?" (you are)... You may even fall asleep... This film is not for you which explains it's limited release.

This film was SUPPOSED to be an upbeat (in Nick Cave Fashion) documentary about the making of his latest album. It's turned into something much more than that. Something haunting... Something phantasmic... Something horrifying... Something beautiful...

As an artist, you can be faced with image or substance. I choose substance. Apparently Nick did too. Therapeutic? Perhaps... Life? And death...