REVIEWED - LEONARD COHEN: I'M YOUR MAN: COMING so soon after the release of Jonathan Demme's beautifully made study of Neil Young, this scrappy tribute to another Canadian singer ends up looking a little like a glorified home movie, writes Donald Clarke
Focusing on an Australian performance of the Cohen celebration that recently touched down in Ireland, the film does feature the odd spine-tingling performance. Antony manages to overcome the handicap of looking eerily like Kathy Burke to deliver an unashamedly melodramatic rendition of If It Be Your Will. Nick Cave, his bald patch unnecessarily highlighted by the indifferent camera work, brings his customary raw insistence to I'm Your Man.
Elsewhere, the film relies a little too strongly on the viewer's tolerance for the octave-strangling antics of the Wainwright clan. Martha and Rufus appear more than once, and their mother and aunt, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, also turn up for the odd warble. They are all on decent form, but one is left yearning for a bit more red meat from the performances. Couldn't Motorhead have been persuaded to chip in?
Never mind. Cohen enthusiasts will savour the picture for the dry, occasionally gnomic utterances of the great man himself. There are notable omissions from the story - why so little on his decision to transform himself from a poet into a singer? - and the illustrative visual tics are obvious to the point of banality. But Cohen's effortless charm appears gratifyingly undiminished by the passing years. No wonder so many women have fallen for him.
The singer's engrossing conversation makes up for the failure to produce any further significant talking heads beyond those already involved in the concert. Which is not to pretend that Bono doesn't turn up. He does, of course, and, before joining Len for a closing run through of Tower of Song, pontificates as he often will in such situations. Those contributions may, I suppose, be to some readers' taste.
