EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert isn't just one for the fans

Don't care much about Elvis? It barely matters, because the awkwardly named EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert is a mesmerising and singular object worth admiring in its own right.

Maximalist director Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!, Romeo+Juliet) here has assembled unseen concert, rehearsal, film and press conference footage into a kind of documentary-concert film hybrid, tracking Elvis Presley's return to live music after the disappointment of his 1960s movie career.

What comes out is a haunting collage that not only captures the frenetic energy of a gifted and intuitive showman going back to what he knows best, but also a compelling portrait of an awkward figure who is often the only person laughing at his own jokes.

Perhaps most importantly, though, it's utterly beautiful. Luhrmann has made a career out of outlandish and lurid films, but watching him pull the same kind of feeling from real life is an impressive feat.

The colours are outrageous, the music is big. You can almost smell the cigarette smoke on the early '70s decor and outfits.

The closest EPiC comes to a narrative is Presley's own voice reflecting on his life over archival footage, alongside clips of him bantering as he and his band practice, and chunks of press conferences.

At times he's charming, thoughtful and insightful in a plain-spoken way. Often he's weird, sad and goofy, a silly attention-seeker struggling to accept why he's viewed as a clown. At points, he feels like a man strangely out of time.

The tightly focussed, moment-in-time quality of the documentary - and its commitment to not doing much more than just letting Elvis speak for himself - makes it feel more insightful and intimate than Luhrmann's sprawling, messy 2022 Elvis biopic - to which EPiC is a kind of companion piece.

But the way Elvis really speaks for himself in EPiC is on stage. He is a force of a nature, a man possessed. His energy is unyielding, and, as he puts it, at any given time seems to just do whatever feels good with his body.

From the second it opens with 'Also Sprach Zarathustra', EPiC surges and never really eases off.

It's as perpetually kinetic and restless as its subject, sprinting through tightly cut parts of booming songs, always powering to what you know will be grand crescendo.

The editing is, at times, hilarious. We watch Elvis making the same face while driving on a green screen in film after film, over and over until it's funny.

It also twists into the grotesque amid shots of the frenzied, screaming crowds and fans charging the stage to touch the icon. A montage of Elvis kissing woman after woman as they fight security guards to get him goes so long it begins to border on horror.

While the painstaking and loving restoration of this footage may draw comparisons to Peter Jackon's massive The Beatles: Get Back, Luhrmann seems much more concerned with making a tight, watchable film than an archive for the hardcores.

That said, as with any concert movie, your mileage will unavoidably vary to a degree depending on how much you connect with the artist and the music.

And as EPiC turns more into a concert experience in its second half, those less-than-enamoured with the music may find it dragging a tad - particularly as it leans away from the best known bangers into a mix of covers and lesser-known numbers.

This is, fortunately, mostly mitigated by a high-energy opening act, a powerful finale, and a 96-minute run time. Bless the filmmakers who can still turn in something near an hour-and-a-half.

This is arguably Luhrmann's best movie since 2001's Moulin Rouge!.

And in many ways, it will be a film that speaks more to fans of the director than the subject.

But in a world where more Elvis Presley documentaries exist than anyone needs, Luhrmann has found a spectacular way to give one of the twentieth century's true icons new life.

Boris Jancic is a member of RNZ's digital team and reviews films.