Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
In the last five years of his life, David Bowie ended nearly a decade of silence to engage in an extraordinary burst of activity, producing two groundbreaking albums and a musical. David Bowie: The Last Five Years explores this unexpected end to a remarkable career. Made with remarkable access, Francis Whately’s documentary is a revelatory follow-up to his acclaimed 2013 documentary David Bowie: Five Years, which chronicled Bowie’s golden ‘70s and early-‘80s period.
A deeply moving documentary chronicling Bowie's final creative burst — Blackstar, The Next Day, and Lazarus — with remarkable insider access and interviews. The ending carries extraordinary emotional weight given Bowie's death shortly after Blackstar's release, making it feel like a deliberate farewell. The narrative structure is compelling but relatively conventional for a music documentary, and 'acting' is largely inapplicable in the traditional sense, limited to talking-head interviews and archival footage. Novelty is solid given the unique subject and access, but the documentary form itself is familiar. The ending elevates the whole.