DVD review: 20,000 Days on Earth - Nick Cave unmasked
A "documentary" about Australian rocker Nick Cave is equal parts fact and fiction, and while it does peel back some layers of mystery, it ends up adding to the Cave enigma.
Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Ray Winstone, Kylie Minogue
Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard
There's always been an air of mystery surrounding Australian rocker Nick Cave, and this fascinating documentary adds to the enigma.
With Cave's help, co-directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard tantalise their audiences with a mixture of fact and fiction. There are scenes obviously played out simply for dramatic effect - and obviously fully scripted - and scenes in which the man and others peel back the layers that have been built around his career over the years.
So we are presented with revelations about and insights into Cave's creative processes, reflections on his relationships in and away from music, and a timeline of sorts of his own development as a human.
The best moments come when he drives the roads around Brighton, the seaside city that has become his home, with the likes of Ray Winstone, Kylie Minogue and former Bad Seeds bandmate Blixa Bargeld along for the ride. Or when he sits down to be "interviewed" by British psychoanalyst and author Dr Darian Leader, who picks away at Cave's relationship with his father, among other issues.
The directors were originally brought in to help document the making of Cave and the Bad Seeds' 2013 release Push the Sky Away. The cameras capture the interplay between band members and chart the evolution of a few songs.