20,000 Days on Earth

Having been on the planet 20,000 days, musician and writer Nick Cave thought it might mark a good time to take part in a documentary about himself. Mind you, this is Nick Cave we are talking about, so a standard documentary will not do. Rather than simple talking head interviews spliced with archival footage, Cave (with the help of directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard) gets in the talking bits via sessions with a therapist and some sequences (including ones with Kylie Minogue and Ray Winstone) where he chats while driving around in a car. Lovers of his music certainly get some, with footage of Cave recording tracks and playing live. It’s a weird entry to the rock doc genre, but a good one at that. Cave is an interesting figure, with or without the music, and hearing him talk about his childhood, his father and landmarks in his career is both entertaining and enlightening. The music is good, so I expect some viewers who know little about Cave’s stuff might venture into his back catalogue after seeing the movie.