In his backdoor biopic, I'm Not There, director Todd Haynes paints a loopy and intoxicating mosaic of elusive rock & roll icon Bob Dylan that reads something like an abstract portrait made for the cinema. Dylan is represented through six different characters that embody different attributes from different periods of his life. None of them is specifically named "Bob Dylan" and hardly any one of their stories contains more than mere pencil sketches of actual truth, but they are each, in their own way, imaginative and emotive mini-masterpieces. I should also state that this is not a film depicted in clear cut segments but rather a montage tone poem that weaves strands of fact with strands of fiction and moments of joy with moments of sorrow. It doesn't really tell the story of Bob Dylan's life. It simply picks up all the shards of Dylan's many shattered public representations, both accurate and inaccurate, and melds them into one grand statement on the way people, particularly celebrities, have not one face but many. The film could spin on and on for many hours more and never run out of stories to tell, but it's agenda is not to depict Dylan's complex identity in its entirety. In fact, you can imagine Haynes would see such a task as a complete impossibility and an utter waste of his time. This is not really a biography at all, but rather a statement on the untouchable nature of the human spirit.Of the many Dylans (Richard Gere, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Ben Wishaw, Marcus Carl Franklin), the standout portrayal is undeniably that of the chameleonic Cate Blanchett whose turn here as a Dylan doppleganger facing cruel press in London following a radical leap of musical style from folk music like "The Times They Are A Changin" to the throttling rock sounds of "Maggie's Farm" is one of the year's most unanticipated joys of artful experimentation. Such a leap could easily fall flat, but Blanchett, in perhaps her most radical and demanding transformation yet, delivers a wild, playful, and wounded take on Dylan that is unmatched by her peers. Sitting in a limousine, speaking in the thumping cadences of Dylan's deliberate, oddly phrased speech, she gets genuinely lost in philosophical thought and humble ramblings only to conclude with an unforgettable smirk "Everybody knows I'm not a folk singer." It's simple enough, but in that moment the film is unlocked and Dylan himself seems to come into clearer focus. It's not the statement itself. It's the simplicity of the words mixed with the character of the speaker. It's an amalgamation of sights and sounds that speaks to the nature of Dylan's ever evolving nature, Blanchett's artificial imitation, and the endeavor undertaken by this entire production. No one is who they say they are. And more importantly, no one knows who they are. They know only that they are not what people have called them.
Grade: A
