With Moonage Daydream, documentary filmmaker Brett Morgen has reinvented the form, synthesizing a kaleidoscope of images and sounds from the life and work of David Bowie into a vibrant, electrifying experience. Like its subject’s nonconformist, taboo-smashing body of work, Morgen’s 140-minute tone poem meditation on one of the most sui generis artists who has ever lived is breathtaking in its scope and originality. Morgen’s film is one of the best of the year. David Bowie pulses in every frame, reminding us from beyond the grave that we’ll never see his like on this planet again.
Upon reflection, Moonage Daydream is (slightly) more conventional than it at first seems. Beneath the surface of the film’s elliptical, almost phantasmagorical tapestry is a roughly chronological examination of Bowie’s career over the course of about 30 years. This is the first documentary about the glam rock pioneer that is officially authorized by the estate of the artist, who died in 2016 from liver cancer.
