"I'm Not There" (2007) - Movie Review

Making a viewer understand the failure of a movie by the film itself is the ironic success of “I’m Not There”, a biopic about the American singer/writer Bob Dylan. One might need to be aware that this is not a conventional biopic, as Dylan himself is not a conventional musician as the film suggests. I am not Dylan fan but have heard few songs. I have not known about his controversial influence in his fame and fiascos but the conscious remembrance that the film is about Dylan is good enough to see it.

What do we exactly want from a film about a real person? Do we enjoy the chronicles of one’s continuous events or the character we observe through it? The person is the material in these movies and her/his behaviours towards society, family and surroundings make his/her story for what it is. Information and details can be acquired from the newspaper or internet with minimal trust but he/she went to this place or smoked this cigarette is not the coverage of a film. The person’s quality either good or bad with examples of one particular scenario handled and butchered by conscious and subconscious mishaps eventually distracts the truth. So why not create a screenplay with multitude of actors depicting the multifaceted personality of this music icon. Todd Haynes as the musician himself has the obligation of satiating his artistic desire in spreading the story of this man. It wins and loses.

Diversified in age, sex and names Dylan is performed by Cate Blanchett, Ben Whishaw, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Marcus Carl Franklin and late Heath Ledger. All adapt a faithful representation in mannerisms and casual dialogue deliveries resembling the man and believe in this experiment. Every one has a tough job in giving a man in real life but a fictional commentary and a veracity of the character. Blanchett is been praised by many for her commendable portrayal near to perfection on this character and I mainly credit that for her segment. The film in her segment really speaks out about him and in turn the film. Till that time, it is a slow and irritating wandering of a posed up intellectualism in art and its complexity easily annoys us. Once we see the opinions more clearly and sound through the mists of tobacco by Blanchett’s Jude Quinn, we are on and boarded from the village of unknown and puzzlement towards a chance and I repeat a chance to explore Dylan. Taking the chance and its fruition entirely depends on the distance a viewer would like to go.

Fame and influential charisma earns and costs. When a man/woman becomes a central part of a society be it any trade, the people take an interest in the spaces and silences they make. If it does not recite their thoughts or the thoughts he/she sounded which is their cause to be for what they are today, the angst grows. The ownership taken on a public figure is irrational. People instantly idolize them and that trumps the purpose of individual thought. Dylan’s songs revolutionized and protested the establishment as the film says and people cheered. They shared the idea and made him famous. He did not want to. He did not expect anything from them, not even to change the world. He wanted to but did not put the weight on them and anticipated the same from them. That did not happen. Director Todd Haynes in this multifaceted screenplay concentrates on this in a more focused manner.

It deals the separate characteristics of a one person as roles. The roles one has to take varies biologically and mentally to survive the life. We see those individually and collaged as one. Similar method was successfully given on a character of seductive and sensual woman played by two actresses in the French film “That Object of Desire”.

So why am I rooting for a film which barely took off on its energy level in its perspective and mainly I did not like it as a whole? The pivotal sequence of Blanchett is one and how that basically paints on the juice of the film, a meaning of nothingness. I cannot even start to explain its ambiguity and inaccessibility. The film as intended is like one of Dylan’s song mystic, cautionary, sometimes clear, sometimes nothing but there is an experience at the end of it. You hate it or like it or bored of it, the stand of the singer and him being taken and interpreted are one too many. And the film might be the greatest if you are a Dylan fan and if you are not, it might work out as well too. For me it did not appeal but it did the impossible, it helped to make peace with it and admire it in a remote sense of attachment.