Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

kpw-5 Leonard is always engaging, and one stays with this messy and overlong piece of amateurism. But it generates rage by the frequency with which performers appear without being identified. Others have commented upon the frequent and irritating inclusion of the luminous graphic frame that anticipates the arrival of Bono and the lads, and they are dead right: it is just one of the many deeply irritating aspects of this potentially delightful piece. EG:Many of the performances just go on and on and on and on -- including, in one case, through the introduction of every member of the band. And a very long series of introductions it is. This is a very thick, incompetent director, who needed to be taken in hand at the editing bench and reminded that the primary responsibility is to the audience. One would have thought that Mel Gibson would have had something to say about tidying it up. Alas.Patrick Watson Toronto

jdesando I once succeeded with an attractive older woman because we shared a poetry lovers' delight in Leonard Cohen's Suzanne. A singer/composer who doesn't need U2 for background deserves a tribute by with singers who do. Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man is an entertaining tribute documentary that took place in January 2006 at the Sydney Opera House. Album genius producer Hal Willner has arranged 13 performances in the "Came So Far for Beauty" concert. Although Nick Cave and the Wainrights among others could hold their own in concert, when they successfully cover Cohen's songs in Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, there's a slight disappointment that the basso gravel voice himself is not singing. After all, he composed the poetry and melodies, in a distinctively soulful, weary signature style that says, "I did this. Let me tell you about it." So, you can anticipate both my praise and criticism: Cohen's songs transfer remarkably well to other singers, especially Cave (Even with a Vegas attitude his Suzanne is effective) and Rufus Wainright (His oft-performed rendition of Hallelujah reveals a song that can endure even Rufus's emendations). The singers carry an experience and innocence respectively, as Cohen does. Cohen's conversations with director Lian Lunson are the most interesting parts of the documentary: his being a poet in Montreal, a hipster in New York, and a monk in a Mt. Baldy Zen monastery. All the time, however, he is cool enough to avoid revealing too much about himself, but then, that's the mystery of his songs as well. He just makes you long to know why he left his art and came back to it. He doesn't tell.When Cohen finally sings Tower of Song, I knew why he was being feted, albeit too unctuously by Bono, and why he sings his compositions better than anyone else. Because he sometimes takes up to a year on one, the care and feeling show in his weathered voice and heavily-lidded eyes. His smirk is not smug either: It mirrors a translucent soul that loves humanity in all its weaknesses, as he loves himself in all his. Deservedly.

Behzad This film should have been only 10 minutes. I mean there is really only 10 minute worth of watchable content in this thing (I even hesitate to call it a movie). The opening credits of the film was somehow promising. As the film begins by short comments of the man himself, you really rub your hands and stay tuned for more footage from Cohen's life. Well, Nick Cave does a reasonable job covering one of Cohen's famous songs. The length of Cave's performance makes you even more eager to see more of Cohen whose wit and well spoken words have already tickled your fancy. But as it turns out Cave's performance is only the start of lengthy super boring performances by literally a bunch of no ones who don't even have a minimal attraction to keep you on your seat. I mean what does the filmmaker really think? five-minute close-up shots of wanna be singers in a fake concert in Australia!!! What does the filmmaker really think to insult the audience by adding "fake applause" to these endless nasty performances. The film is a perfect torture that shows you very little of what you came to see. There is not a single footage of Cohen's past. In fact, except for a few photographs of his early days as a singer/poet there is absolutely nothing! If you add up all the minutes that Cohen talks it may not even reach 10 minutes. But these 10 minutes are tortuously presented bit by bit in between disastrous camera-work that captures some of the most unattractive people screaming Cohen's lyrics. If you ever decided to waste your money on this film, DON'T! just throw it in the garbage and at least save your time.

Michael Fargo There's a moment in this film when Nick Cave describes the reason he first liked Leonard Cohen. Cohen's songs represented everything that Cave's home town wasn't. I suppose the same thing brought me to be a fan of Cohen's. It was never anything I defended. It was a very personal and quiet admiration. But it was also a deep one.Cohen's lyrics had always seemed like elaborate word puzzles to me. Bordering on the bizarre or obscure, they touched me in a place that needed affirmation, songs that acknowledged at the same time my faith and as well as skepticism of the political environment. But there was always that "puzzle" which was playful and mocking at the same time. No one—at least who I admired—did that with their music. When I heard that producer Hal Willner's tribute at the Sydney Opera House had been filmed and opened at Sundance, I was excited because I thought, "Finally someone else likes him too." I hadn't run across that many Leonard Cohen fans in my four decades of admiration. And I had read reviews that quibbled with the various interpretations of songs in the film and what some reviewers felt the filmed lacked. So I went prepared to be disappointed. I was anything but.The quality of the cinematography of Lian Lunson's tribute was the first thing that surprised me. The scenes of performances at the Sydney Opera House are beautiful with the musicians stepping out of inky blackness. The simplicity of the staging and the tight frame on singer's faces gives the film viewer a vantage that the audience in Sydney didn't have. There's a texture which Lunson added that wasn't artsy; I found it artful.And the performances are electrifying. Many have already commented on the Wainwright's and Anthony Hegarty's contributions. So I'll skip that (although Martha Wainwright blew me away). For me, Teddy Thompson's strong folk vocals were the most successful, and I'm pleased the soundtrack gives us an additional track of his performance. With the McGarrigle sister's unearthly harmonies with Martha Wainwright and then Julie Christensen/Perla Battala's performance that leads to the closing of the film, I was moved to tears by the beauty and power of their performance. Battala has a terrific solo album of Cohen's music. If you haven't heard it, seek it out. I suppose if Bono and The Edge agree to be in your film, you're obligated to include as much of what they say as you can. Personally, their praise was redundant and finally uninteresting. And while I'm a fan of their music and admire their philanthropy, I'd had quite enough of their gushing halfway through the movie.What we get of Cohen himself is plenty. For one, he's returning to the stage, and the film leads to that moment with the use of dissolves and overlays of the final performance tacked onto the end of movie. For reasons I don't understand, many people object to that. I thought it was terrific and Lunson teases us at the film's start with the moment of Cohen stepping up to the microphone in a New York cabaret where he gained his notoriety.The long interview with Cohen that is interspersed between the performances has also been a target of critics. But each segment leads quite directly to the next performance with Cohen commenting on the next song, giving us background of either the next song or the performer. Occasionally, he'll talk about himself, but he's not seeking celebrity, and those who kneel at that particular altar will be disappointed. This is a musical tribute and not a biographical film. Like many, I wanted more, but I wanted more of the same. I couldn't wait to see who the next performer was or what they would do with the music. Only Nick Cove sticks to a strict repeat of Cohen's arrangements. Everyone else brings something new and different and often haunting to songs that are already instilled with mystery. And I was grateful that Willner chose not to drag out old saws like Judy Collins, Jennifer Warnes or Buffy St. Marie to give us a reprise of those who popularized Leonard Cohen's songs. The performances in "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man" are new and fresh, demonstrating each song's timelessness and after 40 years in some cases, relevance.