VAL FINDS HIS VOICE

He may be unable to speak because of illness but actor Val Kilmer is telling the world who he is in a highly acclaimed documentary

- DENNIS CAVERNELIS

HE’S played a caped crusader, a gun-slinging lawman, a rock star, and a fighter pilot – but in his latest big-screen outing, he just gets to be himself.

And the documentary chronicling the life of one of Hollywood’s most complex characters turned out to be one of the talking points of the world’s most glamorous film festivals. Val tells of the highs and lows of Val Kilmer, a man whose extraordinary skill has always been undercut by a notoriously difficult personality.

But this doccie, which is directed by Leo Scott and Ting Poo and debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, is more than other people making a movie about a famous person.

Because long before camera phones and social media were a thing, Val (61) was filming himself, his brothers, and their friends on an old-fashioned video camera, recording it all for prosperity.

To make the film, Leo and Ting sifted through 40 hours of home footage to capture what Variety calls Val’s “talent, intelligence and gift for self-sabotage”.

“He was into the whole obsession with self-recording ahead of everyone else,” the magazine says. “He kept a video camera running at home, on movie sets, wherever he was. What makes Val a good and heartfelt movie, rather than just some glorified movie-star-as-trashed-parody-of-himself piece of reality-show exploitation, is that he brings to the film an incredible sense of self-awareness.”