David Bowie is

A documentary about an exhibition on David Bowie’s career and the many personae he’s had across it is undoubtedly an interesting concept. It’s entirely possible that with an exhibition of this magnitude, visitors are inevitably going to overlook certain details. This documentary not only offers a comprehensive history of Bowie, but also potentially catches things you might miss while viewing the exhibition when it arrives in Melbourne next year.

The exhibition features hand-written lyrics, record cover artwork, illustrations of set designs and too many costumes to count. The documentary is interspersed with live footage from the closing night of its run at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. People like Jarvis Cocker and Kansai Yamamoto discuss Bowie, his career and his influence on them, authentic and heartfelt personal insights.

Over Bowie’s long and illustrious career he’s gone through so many, um, changes, it can be a little difficult to maintain chronological order when looking back at his vast array of work. While this caused some moments of confusion of the what-happened-when variety, it didn’t detract from the fact that this man is a living legend.

Watching this documentary has only made us more excited about the exhibition, which arrives next year as part of ACMI’s Melbourne Winter Masterpiece Series. 

At select cinemas 14 Nov