One More Time With Feel­ing – first look review

Ini­tial­ly designed to track the mak­ing of Cave’s new record, ​‘Skele­ton Tree’, Andrew Dominik’s inti­mate doc­u­men­tary inevitably becomes far more – a mov­ing doc­u­ment of sad­ness, strength and sur­vival that proves impos­si­ble to shake off.

Cave’s son Arthur trag­i­cal­ly passed away in June 2015, aged 15, after falling from a cliff in Brighton hav­ing tak­en LSD. Dur­ing the course of the film, Cave admits he’s now uncom­fort­able being in front of the cam­era. For the first time, he says, he has no idea how to act.

He needn’t have wor­ried. Dominik has a nat­ur­al eye for observ­ing what is unfold­ing, cap­tur­ing in vivid detail Cave, War­ren Ellis and the band craft­ing music that can’t help but refer to Arthur, as Cave admits lat­er on. The fact that Dominik and Cave have worked togeth­er before (on the sound­track to 2007’s The Assas­si­na­tion of Jesse James by Cow­ard Robert Ford) cre­ates an essen­tial short­hand and trust that made the film pos­si­ble. With reser­va­tion, Cave reveals far more than he might have oth­er­wise, as he strug­gles to come to terms with his loss. His wife Susie and their son Earl also contribute.

The film may not prove par­tic­u­lar­ly cathar­tic for the fam­i­ly – it’s still far too ear­ly for that – but it does pro­vide the audi­ence with a frame­work with which to expe­ri­ence the new music (the album was half fin­ished when Arthur died). Cave appar­ent­ly want­ed this to serve as press and mar­ket­ing, to save him hav­ing to face being asked relent­less ques­tions about his loss. It should achieve that and more in the weeks ahead. The album, with its infec­tious rhythms, lyri­cal flour­ish­es and emo­tive themes, will res­onate deeply with his fans, too.

Taste­ful­ly shot in exquis­ite mono­chrome, and in 3D, this is a sen­si­tive work, but sur­pris­ing­ly Dominik finds room for a run­ning gag as well, as the min­i­mal crew strug­gle to get their new equip­ment to work, even drop­ping the 3D cam­era on the stu­dio floor at one point. The 3D also serves a dual func­tion, offer­ing both a close­ness and a dis­tance with its sub­ject. Cave is often heard in voiceover, nar­rat­ing and reflect­ing, with the action split between Air Stu­dios in Lon­don, the fam­i­ly pile in Brighton and the back of var­i­ous taxis (DA Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back was appar­ent­ly a key influence.)

Sur­pass­ing the oth­er very fine Nick Cave doc, 20,000 Days on Earth, One More Time With Feel­ing is a pro­found­ly mov­ing expe­ri­ence, par­tic­u­lar­ly when the fam­i­ly comes togeth­er on screen. This film will leave you feel­ing numb. One can only imag­ine how the film will ulti­mate­ly affect them.

One More Time With Feel­ing is in cin­e­mas for one night only 8 September.