Movie review: Nothing Can Hurt Me

If you've been hanging out for another music documentary every bit as great as Searching for Sugar Man, the wait is over.

big star

MOVIE REVIEW: If you've been hanging out for another music documentary every bit as great as Searching for Sugar Man, the wait is over.

The subject of Nothing Can Hurt Me is a 1970s act every bit as obscure as Sixto "Sugar Man" Rodriguez: a Memphis rock quartet named Big Star.

Bad luck, poor timing and an ever-present feeling of doom seemingly ghosted every move the band made in an abruptly short career.

At the murmuring heart of Nothing Can Hurt Me, you will find the original line-up's powerful singer-songwriting nucleus. Big Star's Lennon and McCartney were Alex Chilton and Chris Bell, two young men blessed with singular talents, as mercurial as they were delicate.

Both could write, play and sing with effortless ease and beauty. It was only whenever the music stopped and life started again that things got awkward. Ugly, even.

Sadly, Chilton was never the same after Big Star finally combusted, and died an enigmatic figure three years ago.

Bell left the band well before it imploded, but died in 1977, aged just 27, after battling drug and mental health issues.

First-time filmmaker Drew DeNicola has done a remarkable job chronicling both Big Star's ill-fated lifespan as a recording act, and their sizeable influence on musicians since.

It is particularly remarkable, considering there is little footage to call on of the band in their prime.

Nevertheless, some sublime editing of photographs set in time to Big Star's music a cold, lonely, and yet, irresistibly appealing sound remains their indelible aural hallmark - still paints a vivid, sometimes haunting picture.

SEE Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me is showing exclusively at the ACMI Cinemas, Federation Square until Thursday, June 13.

--

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me [M]

Rating: 3/5

Director: Drew DeNicola (documentary debut)

Starring: John Fry, Jody Stephens, Andy Hummell, Chris Stamey, Robyn Hitchcock

"No-one could hear them. Until too late"