Mystify

In life, Michael Hutchence was an Australian rock icon: the lead singer of INXS, our first true international Rock Star. By most media accounts he lived a life of fame and excess. Yet there was far more to Michael Hutchence than the often one-dimensional look-in that the media gave us.

Mystify is a film that allows us to see for the first time, Michael Hutchence the person – and is thankfully devoid of any the media glare or sensationalist barb that has tainted many past attempts to portray him. Utilising never before seen footage from family, lovers and friends, and focusing on intimate conversations and interviews with some of the people who were closest to him, Mystify puts together all the pieces that matter, and does so in as raw and honest and as beautiful a way as could be hoped for.

From Aussie beginnings, thrown together with Hong Kong street and business smarts, is created Michael Kelland Hutchence, a complex soul: part shy, part insecure, part larrikin, part aspiring bohemian, and part artist – one with an undeniable creative flair and unstoppable showmanship. The film not only traces Michael’s history as a child and young man, but also his beginnings with the band as INXS paid their dues touring the Aussie backroads in the early years – a journey that eventually forged the bandmates into brothers. It also captures Michael’s exuberance and flair onstage, proving it was a role he was born to play. But while the film reminds us that this defined him in a way that nothing else did, and showcases the bands eventual stratospheric rise to success, the film is also honest about Michael’s feelings towards the band’s breakthrough when they hit the big time with ‘Kick’ in 1987. “I don’t like the idea of success”, Michael explains in one interview. That the band had ‘made it’ never really held any true significance for him, and this is what Mystify is all about – the reveal – allowing us to see exactly who the man behind the image truly was.

As an inherently creative soul, Michael craved expression, connection, and breaking new ground. His vision of rock n roll did not centre around stardom or success, rather, he defined it as “liberation”. For him, music was a true liberation of the soul. Sadly, this was not a vision shared by all of those around him, and in many ways it was a struggle for him to be accepted for who he truly was. Footage of Michael appearing at an awards show in 1989 with his trademark locks chopped short was a prelude of that to come – namely, Max Q, his solo project – a band with a postpunk ethos and a late eighties dance feel. For Michael, this project was a defiant outward symbol of the true bohemian within. Max Q enjoyed moderate success within Australia, but did not echo the path INXS had forged. But for Michael that didn’t matter. Because for him, Max Q was about Liberation. With a capital L.

This is what Mystify does best – it provides an honest look into Michael’s heart and soul. This is a many dimensional film, and we see Michael in all different aspects: we see Michael the artist, we see Michael the performer, we see Michael the lover, and we see him as a friend and family man. We see him brave, defiant, vulnerable. Here, he is an open book. Director Richard Lowenstein (who also directed Michael in the postpunk biopic ‘Dogs In Space’) shifts the ground beneath us so that we are able to rethink our vision of the Aussie Rock Star, and find a place for him in our hearts as he truly was, not just as the media portrayed him to be. And this is where the film truly shines – this is true art – because it makes us think, and challenges our preconceptions about Michael Hutchence The Rock Star. We re-envision him as a whole person. And that is a gift.

As someone who was lucky enough to have known Michael personally, what touched me most about this film were the connections I was able to make to my experience of knowing him. So many things in Mystify rang true for me. So many things that others said about Michael in the film were exactly the same things that I have said about Michael over the years; even some of the experiences referred to in the film were things that I experienced with him. For example, sitting up with him till the early hours after a show because he didn’t want to be alone and needed people around him to talk to. Even seeing footage of him in his RUN DMC t-shirt bought back memories of Michael and Tim Farriss wearing the same t-shirts to the studio one night and laughingly telling us how INXS had swapped their tour shirts in return for free RUN DMC ones. Michael loved music, not just as an artist and performer, but as a fan too.

Mystify is the Michael I knew and loved. Exactly as he was. This is my Michael: honest and articulate, funny and smart, with an innate cool, and charisma by the bucketload. When he walked into a room, the energy shifted and he exuded warmth and embraced all in his path. He loved people. He was interested in them from a genuine place in his soul, and it showed. And you can feel this energy in the film. It’s captured. It’s there. It’s him.

Watching the last part of this film was especially difficult for me. I remember seeing some of the later interviews with Michael on tv at the time, and I knew something was very wrong. He seemed angry and bitter, and there was a vibe about him that I had never seen before. As I watched the movie, I saw the same sentiments echoed by those who were around him at that time. He was truly one of the most giving, one of the sweetest, most intelligent people you could ever meet. It saddened me greatly that things changed so drastically for him towards the end, following an assault in 1992 that left him with a brain injury which remained untreated. But however tragic, this was part of his story too, and the film sheds light on this last chapter of his journey so that we can understand exactly what happened to him in a way that needed to be told.

Michael left a unique legacy of love and music to the world that no-one else will ever be able to fill. He deserves to be remembered for the wonderful artist and human being that he was.

This film is all of Michael – Mystify is Michael Hutchence’s true legacy.

Thank you Richard Lowenstein. Michael would be proud.

Mystify by Madman Films is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray.