20,000 Days On Earth

Studio: Drafthouse Films
Directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard

Sep 16, 2014 By Austin Trunick Issue #51 - September/October 2014 - alt-J

The opening of Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s film is a triumph for the movie’s editing department. With the screen divided into tiny, individual cells, we speed through the first 54 years of musician Nick Cave’s life as a counter ticks upward. It’s counting off the days from childhood to his Birthday Party years, and through three decades with The Bad Seeds. It stops, the movie begins, and we follow Nick Cave on his 20,000th day on Earth.

This fictionalized documentary will be essential to Cave fans—it offers some nice, frank insight into the artist’s past and his creative process. Through conversations with bandmates, family members, and even a shrink, it plays like one drawn-out interview as Cave moves between his home and his studio, or drives about in his Jaguar. Shot during the making of Push the Sky Away, there are excellent studio clips and even better performance footage included. 20,000 Days On Earth will probably be too slow and dry for non-Cave-diehards, but it is a visually- and sonically-arresting journey either way.

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