A day in the life of Nick Cave. The film follows the musician on what is presented as the 20,000th day of his existence (which roughly equates to his 54.79th year). It paints an individual portraiture, a snapshot of a person at one point of his life and career, a portrait of the artist as a middle-aged man, with no mid-life crisis in sight.

At such a point of his life, it is inevitable that the subject of the film accumulates plenty of life experiences. We listen to Nick Cave discussing his past, and how it informs the conception of his art. The stories and elaborations convey the sense of a man finding his purpose after having undergone various transformations through his life journey. From being a self-absorbed young person, forming a band initially promoted to be the most violent on Earth (which eventually rebelled to perform like a bunch of shoegazers), turning into a junkie, becoming a drifter in Berlin, and now, a relative family man settling in Brighton. He is a person changed many times. Indeed, at the most superficial, his Australian accent is barely there, weathered by the English climate.

Those stories and ruminations, which form the basis of the film, are delivered through direct-to-audience voiceover and dialogues with various interlocutors. This arrangement, combined with the beautiful wide-angle cinematography, fluid editing and some imaginative montage, prevents the film from having the feeling of a typical talking-head laden documentary. As the main point of interest himself, it helps that Nick Cave emits a certain sense of presence on screen. Yet, one may still feel that several conversational scenes involving familiar faces such as Kylie Minogue, which are edited to feel like they occur in some reverie, are just too contrived.

There are simply no dull moments in the film, despite the lack of melodrama or dramatic exposé.

However, the film is still well designed. It is very far from being a straightforward documentary. It is an elaborate non-incidental construction, especially with Nick Cave sharing the writing credit with the filmmakers, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, with whom he has collaborated before. The events happening on screen, from a morning psychotherapy to a late evening gig, are devised and staged to explore his creative process and inclination, which it successfully documents. Such film defies categorisation.

Nonetheless, there are still some moments of vérité. Parts of the film appear to be framed, shot and edited in an observational style, akin to what D. A. Pennebaker used in his Bob Dylan documentary, DON’T LOOK BACK. The dialogues heard and the actions seen feel natural, especially in the recording scenes. Such scenes would normally use processed soundtracks, giving a polished feeling. However, the ones in the film feel raw, as it seems the music we hear is recorded through the film crew’s microphones, not the recording console. This results in an extraordinary fly-on-the wall feeling.

There are simply no dull moments in the film, despite the lack of melodrama or dramatic exposé. One does not have to be familiar or even like his music to be engrossed. The whole work feels and reads like an extended visual interview, drenched in adrenaline and some perception-altering substances. And, of course, the songs are superb.

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