Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man is part concert movie, part tribute movie and part biography of the septuagenarian poet-songwriter from Montreal. In January 2005, musicians from a variety of musical backgrounds played tribute to Cohen in the Came So Far for Beauty concert at the Sydney Opera House.

Director Lian Lunson's artful documentary pieces together some memorably intense performances of Cohen's works from the concert by the likes of Rufus Wainwright, Nick Cave (performing a swaggering version of the title song) and Beth Orton. Interspersed between each performance are interviews with Cohen himself as he reflects on the course his life has taken and the lessons learned. The performers also talk, with disarming humility, about the huge influence of Cohen on their own careers. U2's Bono and The Edge are almost at a loss for words to express Cohen's importance. Cohen performs his only track here - the wry Tower of Song - with U2 at the end of the documentary. Bono talks of Cohen's sensuality ("his world was brightly coloured") as being what grabbed him. Both talk of his rare ability to convey metaphysical and spiritual life with ease and humour.

Cohen holding forth with that mellifluous bass voice goes back to the early days - why he started writing poetry (to impress girls with his mind), his calmness on the death of his father (it was "in the realm of things that can't be disputed or judged"). He takes us through his years as a Montreal poet to the rock star years when he was hanging out with the beatniks in New York and jokes that his mother would not have approved of his song bragging about his fling with Janis Joplin in Chelsea Hotel No. 2. Rufus Wainwright gives a rousing rendition of the song and also a memorable cover of Everybody Knows, although like other performers seems a little too dependent on the lyric sheet at times.

Cohen says of his much publicized retreat into monastic life in his later years that it was more his Japanese master that drew him in rather than the religion, although throughout the film a buddhist equanimity suffuses his reflections on his accomplishments and his "failures."

While the appeal of the performers, who vary from folkie to Britpop (Jarvis Cocker), is sure to vary depending on personal taste, the highlight song for me was the androgenous, powerfully voiced Antony, who I'd never heard before, singing If It Be Your Will. It sends shivers down the spine.

The film occasionally seems uncertain of its course, but in spite of this drawback, the strength of the performances and being in the company of this most sensitive of wordsmiths make it worth seeing.