David Bowie's cosmic journey, his lifelong search for self, truth, meaning and purpose, is splashed across the screen in the immersive technicolor fantasia of "Moonage Daydream," a mesmerizing, swirling, kaleidoscopic explosion of music and color set to a soundtrack of the artist's inimitable catalog.
It's an experience first and a documentary second.
Writer, director and editor Brett Morgen, who previously explored the lives of film producer Robert Evans (2002's "The Kid Stays in the Picture") and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain ("Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck"), presents Bowie through a barrage of film clips, interviews, stock footage and experimental visuals that approximate his ever-shifting style, personas and artistic id. It's an intimate look at a one of a kind artist who never stopped reevaluating what it meant to create and how it felt to be alive.
"All is transient. Does it matter? Do I bother?" We hear Bowie say this early in the film, and it's a kind of guiding philosophy of where his career would take him. He of course did bother, and he became a Rock God, certainly one of the most important and influential artists and musicians to ever visit Earth. We were lucky to have him among us.
"Moonage Daydream" is culled from thousands of hours of interview footage — Bowie was never shy about an interview, and he always gave candid, colorful, thoughtful answers when asked of life's great mysteries — and millions of artifacts and pieces of ephemera. Morgen's film combines all these elements of Bowie's life and art, blends them with outside visuals (including clips from everything from "Nosferatu," "The Wizard of Oz" and "The Seventh Seal" to "Event Horizon" and "Run Lola Run") and scores them with an uninterrupted stream of Bowie tunes, from "Space Oddity" to "Heroes" to "Ashes to Ashes" and beyond.
The result is a rousing celebration of Bowie's restlessness and creativity, and Morgen channels Bowie's spirit through every frame of the film. "Does it matter? Do I bother?" The answer to both is a resounding yes, and "Moonage Daydream" shows what's possible when you pour everything you have into something. That's what Bowie did, and Bowie would be proud of this document of his life.
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'MOONAGE DAYDREAM'
Grade: B+
MPAA rating: PG-13 (for some sexual images/nudity, brief strong language and smoking)
Running time: 2:14
How to watch: In theaters Friday
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