PATTI SMITH: DREAM OF LIFE

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The soul of one of rock's true poets is examined in an appropriately abstract way in Steven Sebring's black and white documentary that could have benefited from more of Patti Smith's songs and another pass in the editing room.

Sebring spent 11 years making the film that hopscotches across time to show the rock songstress in different cities like Paris, New York or Baghdad interacting with her surroundings in a tactile way that informs her stage personality.

Patti Smith narrates the film with recollections of friends, lovers and family.

The effect is calming and peaceful, far from her cathartic onstage indictment of George Bush that threatens to bury the unlikely President under her unleashed fury.

Maudlin to a fault with one too many visitations upon deceased people — burial sites of poets figure prominently — the film lacks a greater outside context to Smith's career that could have been provided with archive footage from her television appearances or concert performances.

By no means a complete picture of an enigmatic figure, "Patti Smith: Dream of Life" captures enough of Smith's inner life to give the audience a good sense of who she is as a human being and as a poet, if not who she was as a rock star.

Not Rated, 110 mins.