Moonage Daydream

(Written and directed by Brett Morgen) (2022)

The great David Bowie died in 2016. He’d have liked this ‘documentary,’ we suspect, because like him, it is sui generis, an assault on the eyes, ears, and (pace his philosophical meanderings) the mind, that satisfies for almost all of its 2 hours and 15 minutes. With a mountain of footage and full estate authorisation, Morgen has lovingly assembled a vibrant, moving monument to the peripatetic searcher and androgynous transformer who was Starman, Ziggy Stardust, Cracked Actor, DJ, the Man Who Sold the World, the Space Oddity, a Young American, a Hero, and more – a shape shifter who went from ashes to ashes.

Inevitably, there are slight repetitions and more substantially, challenging excisions in the film, but really, so what? The editing is superb, there are no annoying intrusions, and Bowie himself, changing over the course of the piece from not only a deliberate strategy, but by inevitable age and experience, is fascinating as always.  And remember, they’re not bisexual shoes, “they’re shoe shoes, silly!”