CLASSIC ROCK Magazine    July 2010

review of "When You're Strange'  (page 105)

Short on music but heavy on the lizard king and company, this is The Doors laid bare.

During the New York media screening for When You're Strange, a critic stormed out after a minute because he thought he was watching an actor portraying Jim Morrison.  Certainly, When You're Strange lives up to the title, plucked from a song on The Doors 1967 debut.  For one thing Jim Morrison, who died in Paris in 1971, comes alive again with spooky regularity.        

Director Tom DiCillo (Johnny Suede, The Real Blonde, Delirious) claims this isn't strictly a documentary.  Despite Johnny Depp's voice-over narration - quite easy to ignore - the avoidance of those ubiquitous rockdoc talking heads 'I remember' recollections allows for natural mystery.

Using hitherto unseen on-stage footage from (various stage riots, the Singer Bowl concert being choice mayhem), DiCillo's major coup is the discovery of pristine film stock from the on-the-road Feast of Friends project, and Morrison's post-Miami bust movie HWY: An American Pastoral (1969), in which he plays a hitchhiker travelling through the Joshua Tree desert back into Los Angeles.

The extraordinary film stock, with its equally unsettling car radio soundtrack, captures all the rock star's undeniable charisma.  Is he acting?  Is he being himself?

Given these godsends and some choice Elektra promotional films, DiCillo can hardly fail to deliver.  The musical excerpts (although much too short, unfortunately) and Morrison's superstar demeanour fill the screen with sound and beauty.

The film doesn't fudge Jim's descent into debauchery.  There's a great run of imagery taken at the LA Woman sessions depicting the singer as drunk as several skunks, and his beleaguered band mates looking on in disgust. For the rest, Morrison's role as erotic politician makes sense when you actually see him in close up; whether bare-chested or bearded, he is the real deal.

The film unravels slightly towards the end.  Morrison's fatal Paris sojourn follows the party line.  But the chance to see the Doors in their pomp, spearheading a dangerous rock revolution, is irresistible.  They definitely were not just another band from LA.

written by Max Bell, rated 9 out of 10 points

(note from Webmistress:  The opening paragraph contains two errors.  It was at the film's first press screening at Sundance in January 2009 that the unenlightened critic stormed out of the theater, not New York.  In addition, Max Bell mis-credits the film's title as coming from a song on their debut LP.)
 

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