Worth: $17.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Courtney Barnett, Bones Sloane, Dave Mudie, Stella Mozgawa
Intro:
...a fascinating exercise in rock star myth debunking.
One of the freshest, most original, and utterly gifted artists to come out of Australia in the last ten years or so, Courtney Barnett is also that classic entertainment industry contradiction in terms: a brilliant performer plagued by shyness and self-doubt. How can you still be unhappy when you’re so loved by many and you seemingly have the best job in the world? It’s a question often hurled at creative artists (and sports stars as well), and it’s never been so cannily, effectively and quietly answered as it is in this wonderfully low key and unassuming documentary from feature debutante Danny Cohen.
No standard tour film or talking heads career retrospective, Cohen’s Anonymous Club is a far more impressionistic and intimate musical portrait. The heart of the film is the series of audio diaries that Cohen (who made several of Barnett’s music videos prior to this doco) requested Barnett record while the thirty-year-old artist was on tour and working on new material. While an extraordinarily gifted, expressive and near-genius lyricist, Barnett has long publicly questioned her abilities as an interview subject, and her audio diaries play out like a slack head-swim riding on currents of self-doubt. No rock star whine (though Barnett amusingly asks whether they are exactly that), these are the kind of daily musings and uncertainties that sweep through all of us.
Teamed with a series of images and sequences that are strikingly everyday even when they play out on concert stages to packed and adoring audiences, they combine to create an accessible, relatable portrait like no other. Anonymous Club is slow, temperate, beautifully shot, and profoundly revealing. As well as the cinematic trawl across Barnett’s very psyche, the film also pulls back the curtain on the artist’s creative processes and daily life. Ever wondered where and how Courtney lives? It’s here, in all its modest, everyday non-glory. Curious about whether Courtney does her own vacuuming? That’s here too, and it looks like a Dyson. There are, of course, many great performances too. Dreamy and enjoyably unhurried, Anonymous Club is a fascinating exercise in rock star myth debunking. It’s also, at its simplest, a very enjoyable 83-minute hang with an extremely cool lady.
