Hallelujah

 

Directors Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine's lovingly crafted homage to singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and his signature composition, the ubiquitous (and inscrutable) Hallelujah from his 1984 album Various Positions, is a ruminative exploration of the artist as a young and not-so-young man.

Cohen, born to a wealthy Jewish Canadian family, was a poet-turned-novelist-turned-songwriter-turned-icon, the last incarnation being a conglomeration of everything that had come before -- his incisive eye and his romantic heart.

Cohen, who died in 2016, was universally admired and loved by scores of songwriters drawn to the depth and lyrical richness of his often musically minimalistic songcraft.

Those who worked with Cohen, many interviewed in the film, describe a man on a journey of introspection and fulfillment that seemed both centering and endless.

The film focuses on Cohen's work on Hallelujah, a piece as elusive as it was, eventually, hypnotic. But Geller and Goldfine also include thoughtful passages about Cohen's nascence, his discovery, victories and disappointments and his triumphant final act.

This film will probably be enjoyed best by fans of Cohen, lovers of music, romantics, folks exasperated by the vagaries of being human in a world too often indifferent to its own soul survival. In short, everybody.