Documentary alchemist Brett Morgen’s Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck provides hardcore fans of the rock legend and casual viewers alike with a vivid, high-energy portrait of a remarkably flawed existence. The film, which marks the first Cobain documentary made with full familial compliance, is a unique blend of unreleased home movies, photos, audio recordings, journal entries, interviews, Nirvana performances and animation. The most heavily explored of all archives, however, is Cobain’s personal artwork. In his signature fast-paced flourishes, Morgen traces Cobain’s psychological journal from infancy to suicide through animated interpretations of doodles, unreleased song lyrics and mix tapes (even the film’s title comes from a music collage tape Cobain made in 1988). The film finds its most poignant moments, as well as its most abstract, in these interpretations.

Some scenes consist entirely of original animated representations of Cobain’s journal entries. Despite being largely speculative, these scenes still create a lucid enough portrait that they blend in well with the rest of the archives. Morgen’s use of home video rounds out his artistic exploration with pure emotive punch. The stark contrast between footage of Cobain as a happy, outgoing toddler with that of him and his wife, Courtney Love, as dysfunctional, heroin-addicted parents in a dumpy apartment humanizes Cobain like never before. Not once does Morgen attempt to create a God-like image for the rock hero, something past Cobain documentaries are largely guilty of. Instead, Cobain is shown for the human being he was: complex, and inherently flawed. As such, the flaws are at the forefront of it all.

For viewers who demand absolute detail, the film may prove a bit frustrating. Morgen places more importance on abstract interpretations than narrative coherence and as a result, some events that casual fans may not be familiar with are glossed over. In fact, the film is much more of a psychological exploration than a chronological documentary (although it is both, technically). Also, the film’s finale is a subjective experience that may garner mixed reactions. Still, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck remains one of the deepest-delving and most inventive documentaries to come around in a long time.