The film introduces more distinctive musical scenes along the way starring Nick Cave, Susie Beck and Warren Ellis who embody various tracks of art and fame.
Near the end of the movie, Cave talks about living in the 'shimmering space' where imagination and reality intersect. He's talking about words and music, but he could be talking about 20,000 Days on Earth.
[The directors] give us a filmed curio cabinet of relics and recollections akin to the video for Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt" if he had given us a tour while singing.
The title refers to the fact that the day chronicled is ostensibly Cave's 20,000th alive, though the movie is so slowly paced that 20,000 days seems more like the running time.
If you're not already a fan of Australian-born rocker Nick Cave, the hyper-stylized documentary 20,000 Days on Earth will make you one -- and increase your knowledge of and appreciation for the artistic process at work.
Nick Cave says he isn't interested in things that he understands. Yet this distillation of the man himself -- reflective and sensitive, and inventive -- tells you much about an artist's understanding of his art.
Like his live performances and recorded works, the tortured dark figure and the aesthetics of the film bring together an intriguing three-dimensional mythological scrapbook.
The film has a cinematic ambition to which it admirably lives up, not only in its bold structure and impressively moody cinematography, production, editing and sound design, but also in its plethora of imaginative and unconventional touches.
"Something happens onstage," Cave says, "where you forget who you are and become someone else." As much as any documentary can, 20,000 Days on Earth allows us to bear witness to what goes on in that process.
