I can understand why a previous reviewer mistook this at first for a mockumentary. It is jargon-loaded, trivia-burdened, and at times downright (unintentionally) comic-pompous. Walker had a fine mellow voice for ballad singing and expressed some originality in a very few later songs, but aside from this?
Why drag in everyone who knew him and/or once grooved on his music and lyrics so they can be mugshot while straining to convince us he's some kind of unsung (pun intended)phenom all of us should recognize and appreciate? If this was the intended theme and purpose of the film, it is an utter failure, suggesting the mystery of Scott Walker's life is that there is no mystery.
If the film makers are trying to make some other point (as is achieved in better music bio films), it's not clear what that might be. It doesn't help that some of his incomprehensible pseudo-poetic lyrics are scrolled in the background.
Several of the commentators are as embarrassingly inarticulate as Walker's own more "advanced" lyrics are. (Are we sure this isn't a mock-umentary?) Where was the director/editor in all this rambling? Off somewhere grooving on Walker's earlier recordings?
Interestingly, the most intelligent comment comes briefly from Sting when he begins to talk about the dark side of romanticism, etc. It's a shame he (or somebody) wasn't given more time to explore the significance of Walker's life. Scott Walker was not one of the greatest musical/poetry talents of the last forty years, but surely he deserves better than this inept bio-film.
