Benjamin Smoke Directed by Jem Cohen & Peter Sillen Plexifilm $20.99 Available at Insound.

In Atlanta, Georgia, anyone who was anyone in the underground music scene knew Benjamin, the cross-dressing icon, speed freak and soul-bearing vocalist with local alt-legends Smoke. Life in Cabbagetown -- a former mill-town near Atlanta on the verge of gentrification, but still home to burnt out artists and working-class roustabouts -- shaped Benjamin's world view, informed his music and acted as a safe zone during his fits of agoraphobia, brought about by his years of drug abuse and ill-health.

Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen befriended Benjamin in the late eighties and developed a unique relationship with him, essentially dropping by and catching up with the iconoclastic figure whenever one of the two was passing through Georgia. Together, they have created a moving portrait of an artist as both rowdy iconoclast and humble conduit by allowing Benjamin to tell his own story on his own terms. Cohen's static, nostalgic frames are instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with his assorted video and documentary work; his is not a journalistic eye, but a deeply personal viewpoint into the lives of the subjects that have come to fascinate him. As such, the viewer is immediately drawn into this subjective position, and the prevailing fascination with the subject -- in this case, Benjamin -- is infectious.

The use of different film stocks (16mm and 8mm are Cohen's preferred tools), digital video cameras and the incorporation of still photography of Cabbagetown from buzz-boy Michael Ackerman coalesce in an evocative visual interface. Clips of the band rehearsing and performing live serve to illustrate how Benjamin's art was an outlet for both his pride and his pain, while confirming Smoke's status as unique collective of disparate musical styles and voices.

Extensive interview segments make up the majority of the film. Nearly every aspect of Benjamin's life is addressed, from his fleeting childhood to his troubled teens and the personal discovery of his sexuality and his life with HIV. His brief time away from Georgia -- during a sojourn in New York during the late-seventies -- reveals both the origins of his punk ideologies and the deep love he had for Cabbagetown. Interview sequences that appear to have taken place towards the peak of Benjamin's ill-health are marked by streaks of incoherence -- yet he still conveyed his thoughts and feelings about his life and the band profoundly: "I still don't really understand why everyone in the band has to play in the same key. If we all have the same key it means we have the same lock, and we know (that) is not true. If you can't find the key, let's fuckin' break in and be over with it. I'll tell everybody I did it."

Quotables such as these appear throughout Benjamin Smoke, illuminating Benjamin's stylized outlook on life and music, while presenting him as a sort of pocket philosopher.

"There was something about the sixth song of our set that made everybody mad all of the time."

The film's soundtrack is a gift from heaven, delivered directly from Smoke themselves. It is equally haunting and hopeful, passionate and pessimistic, and laced with a nostalgic edge that clings fiercely to Benjamin's withdrawn figure. From hot and stuffy practice spaces to an opening slot for The Patti Smith Group in Atlanta that would prove to be the group's career high, Smoke is observed honing their skills and crafting a sound that observes the dark chamber rock histrionics of predecessors such as Tom Waits, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Patti Smith herself. Framed within the context of the interviews, Benjamin's lyrics take on an unusual autobiographical edge. While it remains difficult to separate fact from fiction, you can't help but think that you're seeing deeply into Benjamin's soul and reaping the rewards of the wisdom he gained from a life of rebellion. Those familiar with Benjamin's story -- and its ending -- will find the experience bittersweet.

Overall, Benjamin Smoke is a portrait film that is both uniquely indicative of its time and fashioned after the canonical work of earlier documentarians such as the Maysles brothers. One of the biggest compliments that could be paid to Cohen and Sillen as filmmakers is the way they have captured the spirit of films such as Salesman (1961) and Grey Gardens (1976) (a classic documentary concerning the reclusive lives of Big and Little Edie Beale -- the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis), films marked by the directors' ability to establish a subjective interviewer position (regardless of the filmmakers' stated intent) without exploiting their subjects. Benjamin Smoke should be considered essential viewing for fans of documentary and music alike. It is an amazing film, chronicling the life of a remarkable figure -- one you will not soon forget.

-- Mike Baker