As a life-long David Bowie fan, I was looking forward to this film but was not quite prepared for the form it took, and director Morgen has accomplished quite a feat of filmmaking. It's not a bio-pic (no actor plays Bowie), and it doesn't quite feel like a documentary either (there are no talking-head interviews with contemporaries or friends or family of Bowie, and no review of his life)--yet, fittingly, it is the first feature to be fully authorized by the Bowie estate. But if it's not those things, then what is it?
As its name suggests, this is less of a film and much more of a dream, an hallucination, a prayer. Presenting images and songs somewhat in chronological order, the only voice for a narrative is Bowie's own. Through a mix of what sound like pensive recordings Bowie made himself and press interviews, we hear him musing on profound, spiritual, and existential questions. Of course anyone who ponders such questions feels those questions deeply, through their soul. And that is where the impulse, the elan to create lies. It is a disarming and unexpectedly intimate experience listening to Bowie speak this way, and reflect on how his own spirit and mind evolved by allowing himself to evolve as an artist. And all while watching a swirling kaleidoscope of Bowie's many looks and characters--including a glimpse into the Bowie archive of five million different items, paintings, drawings, recordings, photographs, films ("The Man Who Fell To Earth," "Just A Gigolo," Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence," "The Hunger," and rare clips of Bowie on stage in the Broadway production of "The Elephant Man"), and journals--along with relevant stock footage and film clips from sources as varied as the 1922 "Nosferatu," the 1928 "The Passion of Joan of Arc," Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel's 1929 short masterpiece "Un Chien Andalou," "The Wizard of Oz," "2001: A Space Odyssey" (not "Oddity"), and "A Clockwork Orange."
And naturally we get to hear Bowie's music but what struck me was the mash-ups of songs with studio versions, live versions, remixes...and the juxtapositions between songs, all beautifully produced by longtime Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti.
The result is a glorious, impressionistic reverie of color, shape, and sound...or "Sound and Vision"...
Recommend? Yes, absolutely. Especially if you are a Bowie fan. And if you are unfamiliar (and, perhaps through no fault of your own, have been living under a rock), you won't get a definitive account of the man and his life...just sit back and take it in. Feel him and experience who he was and is. If you miss it playing at a theatre, not to worry: it will be streaming this coming spring of 2023 on HBO MAX.
https://www.moonagedaydream.film/home/
https://www.davidbowie.com/
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