Review of I'm Not There (2007) by Davey M — 20 Mar 2013

Like Julie Taymor, Todd Haynes made a movie last year about one of the most essential musicians of the 20th century, and the 1960s particularly, that makes pretty much no sense unless you already have an extremely intimate knowledge of said musical artist.

Unlike Taymor, Haynes' movies is pretty interesting--it has a couple things to say about the fractured, postmodern psyche, and certainly a lot of images (it's beautifully photographed and edited) and emotions (and, of course, songs) to present.

By the final third, it gets a bit tedious though, a bit redundant, and the indulgent incomprehensibility of the whole thing a bit obnoxious (this coming from a big fan of Haynes, an even bigger fan of Dylan, and a mid-size fan of Blanchett, Bale, Ledger, Moore, and Gere).

Still, the movie is certainly something, and it's interesting to see the intertextual conversation one movie so steeped in references can have with itself.