FRIDAY NIGHT FLICKS: ONE MORE TIME WITH FEELING
Brace for darkness.
One More Time With Feeling documents Australia-borne troubadour Nick Cave’s struggle to complete 2017’s Skeleton Tree, his sixteenth (!) studio release with the Bad Seeds, following the sudden and tragic death of his 15-year old son Arthur halfway through the album’s creation.
Commissioned by Cave as a means of quelling the media frenzy tormenting him and his family following the incident, the film is a tragic yet hauntingly beautiful depiction of grief’s effect on the creative process, and art’s subsequent ability to heal in times of tragedy.
From an aesthetic standpoint, the Andrew Dominik-directed One More Time With Feeling looks and feels equal parts Get Back and Nosferatu; if you can look past the complete and utter emotional devastation brought on by the film’s grim subject matter, it comes across as one of the most visually stunning documentaries ever made.
Dominik’s weightless 3D cinematography (shot entirely in black and white) invites the viewer to exist as a fly on the wall during the film’s soul-stirring musical performances, all of which are the actual takes heard on Skeleton Tree.
At times, it can be difficult to sit through Cave’s seriously heavy poetic tangents on life, death, and music. It gets dark.
Very dark.
But for those who can relate to his pain, anguish, and confusion, these intimate conversations may offer both solace and new perspectives on dealing with loss.
“All of this stuff I'm saying now, it just, it feels like a lot of bullshit to me. It may mean something, but in the end, there's something that happened... and there's a kind of ring around that event, or it's fenced off... and everything else is okay around it, but there's just something that happened in that short space of time that we can never get that far away from. When I looked back at the film, there was something I was rattling on about time being elastic, and I think that's what I meant, that we're attached to this event, and that we move away, and we're on a rubber band. Life can go on and on and on, but eventually it just keeps coming back to that thing. And that's... that's some kind of trauma, I guess.” —Nick Cave
We’re huge fans of Nick Cave here at Inherent Bummer, but even if we weren’t, we’d still give One More Time With Feeling five out of five stars — certified essential viewing. But be forewarned; the film’s darkly ethereal cinematography, emotionally intense live performances, and candid dialogue culminate in a viewing experience that just might tear your heart to shreds. —Jackson Todd
You can Stream One More Time with Feeling on Amazon Prime here. Or Google around and you’ll find it.
