by MATTHEW HAYS

There’s a sweet moment early on in Lian Lunson’s documentary, Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Nick Cave, who performs a couple of Cohen songs, discusses the first time he ever heard a song by the famous Montrealer. Gushing unapologetically, Cave says, “I felt like the coolest person in the world.”

Now in his 70s, Cohen is still pretty damn cool. And this film is testimony to that, with a gaggle of singers lining up for a tribute concert, an event that took place in Australia in 2005. The McGarrigle sisters, Jarvis Cocker, Beth Orton, Martha and Rufus Wainwright (among others) all show up to perform variations on the Cohen songbook. As a concert film, Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man is mostly quite pleasing. Many of the songs are magnificently rendered, although they suffer when people add even more irony to Cohen’s already irony-laden shtick, like when Rufus belts out “Everybody Knows.” The most profound interpretations come when Cohen’s words are played straight-up: Teddy Thompson excels, as does the androgynous Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons), who will break hearts with his turn in this film.

Lunson took on a well-documented legend with this feature: Cohen has been captured before, most notably in Donald Brittain and Don Owen’s landmark 1965 NFB doc Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen. Lunson’s film takes on several different dimensions: It is at once a tribute concert film, an interview with Cohen, and an assortment of discussions with famous admirers.

The talk is often fun, in particular one story by Rufus Wainwright, who says that the first time he ever met Cohen, the man was standing in his underwear, tending to an injured bird that had fallen out of a tree. The story is as endearing as it is odd, a perfect reflection of Cohen himself.

The doc makes no mention of Cohen’s well-publicized financial woes, but it does capture the sense of an older man looking back at his life with a degree of sentimentality. At one point, Cohen intones with his husky voice, “Things got a lot easier when I no longer expected to win.” Somehow, Cohen makes even this seem cool.

Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man opens Friday, June 23

>> Movie Listings