I am Heath Ledger

52nd KVIFF – The first visit to this year’s film festival in Karlovy Vary and such an obvious emotional milker. On the other hand, I appreciate that, after some time, somebody actually took on such a documentary at all. Truthfully… it is celebratory and biased 99.9% of the time but in its defense, I have to say that it still gives you a lot of interesting information from the world of Hollywood, which I wouldn’t have found out under different circumstances. I have loved Heath Ledger since I was little. I first came across him in a video rental thanks to the 10 Things I Hate About You VHS, where he played a pretty-boy character, which Hollywood was crowded with at the time. Even so, I used to, and still do, like the movie a lot not only because of his character. However, I was fascinated by how he got from The Patriot and mainly A Knightʼs Tale (which I personally really like) to the character of Joker, which was acting-wise absolutely brilliant. I also appreciate a lot of information from the documentary about which I had no idea. Heath’s beginnings, his Australian house in Hollywood, his passion for music, and for filming music videos. Overall, this documentary is very meaningful for me and it added a whole number of interesting information and once again proved how different actors are to the way they present themselves in their roles. It almost seems to me that Heath’s embodiment of different characters was a certain form of pact with the devil. Hats off to the boy from the bushland of Australia who tried to learn everything and did it by himself. (04.07.2017)

Squandered potential of which the audience is constantly reminded throughout the film. The result is merely a standard documentary that linearly maps Ledger’s career with commentary from talking heads. Let’s leave aside the fact that the choice, or rather the availability, of speakers creates the impression of incompleteness and the absence of any counterpoint. The main difficulty consists in the fact that the film’s promotion highlighted access to hundreds of hours of footage that the actor shot on hand-held cameras. Despite the name, however, only a fraction of the film’s runtime is devoted to that. It is difficult to say if there was actually much to choose from, but the small solo etude where Ledger plays a scene involving a paranoid departure from a hotel room is a bright glimmer of immediate creativity that is otherwise drowned in other people’s blathering about Ledger’s talent. If only because Ledger was a creative dynamo and was on his way to great things both in front of and behind the camera, he deserved a better tribute than an ordinary touching obituary. For example, there could have been broader commentary that would compare his talent with others – after all, one of the inadvertently most powerful moments that the documentary did not in any way utilise is Ledger’s own recording in which, on his way to the United States, he reads the writings of Bruce Lee, another multi-talented performer who died prematurely. Paradoxically, in the end the main benefit of this unsuitably titled documentary is only that it dispels the myth surrounding Ledger’s death in relation to the role of the Joker. (10.07.2017)

Praktisch standardisierte Medaille, auf der die interessantesten Teile weithin sind, sind jene, die sich Heath Ledger als begabtem experimentellen Filmemacher und Videoclipregisseur widmen, was ein Beruf ist, den die Leute normalerweise nicht mit ihm in Verbindung bringen. Trotzdem besteht der Großteil des Dokumentes hauptsächlich aus Ausschnitten aus verschiedenen Filmen, aus Aufnahmen vom Dreh und aus Interviews mit anderen Schöpfern, Heaths Freunden und Familienmitgliedern, die mit Tränen in den Augen daran denken, wie großartig er war. Es ist offensichtlich, welch ein großes schauspielerisches Talent die Welt verloren hat, aber dieser Film bringt definitiv nichts Neues mit sich, er funktioniert nur als nostalgische Erinnerung und überspringt lieber gleich düstere Themen. (11.07.2017)

This movie isn't interesting because it's about Heath Ledger's life, as he's adored almost flawlessly as if he had no faults. It's interesting because it offers a portrait of an immensely creative individual, which I must admit I wasn't aware of until now. Samples of his work and home movies are the biggest plus of this film. (07.07.2017)