I have to admit, I am not, nor have I ever been a Leonard Cohen fan. I have a healthy suspicion of any songwriter who is described as a poet and has acolytes who speak about him in deferential tones. There is a lot of that in this film, as every man and his dog has been dragged before the camera to pontificate about the magic and the mysticism of the great man and his lyrics. That said, when he speaks for himself, his deep gravely voice reveals touches of humour and cynicism which make him far more likeable. He says when he was born, “the givers hovered over me like a football team, then they took some gifts away – those that didn’t fit they threw back into the void.” He goes on to talk about his songs and his formative experiences; the truth behind Suzanne with her tea and oranges or the Chelsea Hotel.

I’m Your Man splices interviews with concert footage in a homage montage that verges on the fawning, while Leonard Cohen himself prevents it from teetering into mawkishness. His songs are often better when performed by others, and much of this film comprises a 2005 tribute concert at Sydney Opera House. All of the singers interpret the tunes with passion and pain – there is much angst on display. Cover versions by Rufus Wainwright and Nick Cave stand out, especially “I’m Your Man” by the latter.

Tributes are spoken over extracts from Cohen’s notebooks – those line drawings are pretty good too – and old footage that shows him looking like a young Dustin Hoffman, although there is a strange absence of any showing him actually performing. Much is made of his upbringing in Montreal which is a town of many cathedrals and spires with nuns walking about in the streets in their habits. The reverential tones echo through the documentary – his unique approach to writing songs and maturing them over a number of years is described as biblical, and U2’s The Edge imagines that he has come down from the mountain with tablets of stone. N.B. (Note to Bono): Just because you have an Irish accent, it doesn’t mean that what you say is profound – e.g. “Some people make doors. Carpenters. Some people are doctors or nurses. Some people are plumbers. He writes songs.” No shit, Sherlock!

Fortunately, Leonard Cohen has a wry amusement and a gift for humility. As I emerged from the film with the patchouli crowd of elegantly dressed women and sartorially scruffy men, I had a new appreciation of the man. It was an agreeable way to spend a couple of hours, and not at all as gloomy as I had expected. Curiously, Mel Gibson, a longtime Cohen fan, is one of the producers, which I hadn’t expected either.

The final word should be his as he reads from an introduction to a volume of his songs, which he describes as a mixture of “Jazz riffs, pop art, religious kitsch and heartfelt prayer. Skip over the bits you don’t like, dip into it here and there. There may be something that resonates. Forgive me if I have wasted your time.”—Kate Blackhurst