20/20 Filmsight - Film Criticism by David O'Connell

An early figure from the career of Nick Cave and his seminal band, The Birthday Party, guitarist Rowland S. Howard would later leave his own mark on the local music scene. Beginning in the wild days of Melbourne pub rock of the 1970's with Cave and their earliest collaborators, Autoluminescent delves into the promising beginnings, the overseas ventures, the falling out with friends and lovers, and the late career renaissance before illness claimed Howard at the age of 50 in 2009.

Interspersed with fascinating archival footage of performances, a series of interview snapshots with Howard provides compelling insights into the man's own perspective. The numerous ebbs and flows of his professional and personal life are likewise appraised by talking heads – family, friends, and admirers - relating colourful anecdotes from those potent years of full-throttled hedonism.

This detailed documentary by Richard Lowenstein and Lynn-Maree Milburn presents its subject in the glowing light of acclaim he’s received from influential industry figures both at home and abroad. Cave and fellow Birthday Party member Mick Harvey contribute heavily in the first half, adding texture to the sketch of a literate, difficult but essentially sweet man who raged against fickle fate most of his life.

Howard’s departure from the band saw him forge a separate path – one littered with disappointments but also a steady accumulation of praise and admiration for his unique guitar playing and idiosyncratic lyrical style that drew heavily on literary and other influences. Of course, detours into troubled relationships and drug addiction are paid more than just lip service for the part they played in shaping both Howard the artist and man.

Autoluminescent (2011) provides moments of genuine poignancy amid its examination of talent spurned for the inherent excesses attached to the rock lifestyle. It's also illustrative of personal demons releasing an artist to his turmoil – an extended state of self-pity and denial that Howard, like greater and lesser men before him, proved he was not immune to.

Most importantly, Howard himself is an ever fascinating figure, trapped though he may have been in a sporadically successful quest for that elusive quota of artistic divinity. The many interviews, from multiple eras, cast him as a haunted figure often retreating into the curative realms of solitude; but a man whose integrity is evoked like an inner luminescence.

Perhaps the directors have been lenient on their subject, but either way, this can be regarded as one of the best rock docs made in this country, both informative and compelling even for those with little interest or knowledge of the subject matter it explores.



I say: A fascinating portrait and welcome tribute to a marginal but still influential figure in Australian rock.

See it for: The music - and the man who gave it life.