The filmmaker of new Michael Hutchence documentary Mystify has revealed how he was terrified of losing his suitcase after Kylie Minogue handed him intimate photos of her.
Minogue allowed filmmaker Richard Lowenstein to access her home videos after he interviewed the singer for the forthcoming documentary – which sees Minogue discussing her relationship with the late INXS frontman between 1989-1991.
While Minogue’s footage of her and Hutchence features extensively in the film, Lowenstein explained how Minogue was “incredibly trusting” as she provided him with the intimate images.
“I’m like, ‘are you insane?’ The tabloids will go mad. If the wrong people get their hands on this it could go crazy,” Lowenstein told NME. “I was taking this footage on the aeroplane and felt like I should have a briefcase handcuffed to my wrist. What if I was to leave it above the seat? She was just incredibly trusting and a completely wonderful person. I don’t think the film would have been the film if it wasn’t for her and her faith. I can’t say enough.”
Lowenstein, who also filmed the videos for classic INXS hits such as ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ and ‘Need You Tonight’, also discussed how he first contacted Minogue after twenty years apart.
“We had been friends back in the Michael days, and we’d spent a fair bit of social time together, we went on holiday to Michael’s villa in the south of France,” he explained. “We hadn’t kept in contact for 20 years, so I put in the normal request with her management, expecting her to be friendly but guarded.
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“But Kylie is renowned to be a incredibly lovely person and always has been. Within ten minutes of the audio-only interview in a dark studio, she just felt safe and we knew each other and she’d seen the film’s pitch trailer. She had this belief and faith that we were going to do something from an honest and an authentic position.”
He added: “She just opened up and offered me her footage that she’d only recently re-discovered. She then came to Melbourne six months later and did another long interview, and had four five hours of her being incredibly honest about her own feelings and what had happened.”
Mystify sees Minogue open up about the pair’s “doomed” relationship, where she describes the frontman as “a dark bad boy” who “opened up a whole new world for [her].”
“Sex, love, food, drugs, music, travel, books, you name it, he wanted to experience it,” said Minogue. “As his partner I got to experience a lot of that as well. If you’re a sensual being, all of your senses need stimulation. He definitely awakened my desire for things in my world.”
“He had insatiable curiosity, all the good things in life and some [of] the bad. He opened up a whole new world for me. A lot of it was based around pleasure, let’s face it.”
This comes after the latest full trailer for Mystify debuted earlier this week. As well as focusing on his relationship with Minogue, the film also concentrates on how Hutchence was assaulted by a taxi driver in Copenhagen in 1991. The incident left Hutchence with a brain injury that rapidly altered his personality.
Check back at NME.com in the coming weeks for our full chat with Richard Lowenstein on all things Mystify.
Mystify will premiere in the UK on October 4 at the London Film Festival, ahead of wider release on October 18.