You can tell if a documentary is truly great if it can hold your attention regardless of your interest or prior knowledge of the subject matter. The truth is, I knew nothing about the band Pavement before watching Pavements , outside of the fact that it was a band the cool art kids in my high school loved. So, when I say that I found the film engrossing, despite this, it means that the film works.

Part biopic, part documentary, part performance film, and part art collage, filmmaker Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements defies categorization in many ways. It attempts to tell the history of the band while simultaneously documenting their final concert tour, the off-Broadway musical adaptation of their songbook, and a touring museum exhibition featuring “artifacts” from the band’s history. If that weren’t enough, interwoven throughout the film are excerpts from Range Life , a supposed “Hollywood music biopic” about the band, starring, among others, “ Stranger Things ’” Joe Keery , while also featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the making of said biopic.

If this all sounds like it’s a bit confusing and hard to parse, well, weirdly it’s not. Perry ( Her Smell , Christopher Robin ) is clearly having a great deal of fun exploring, and deconstructing both the music documentary and the Hollywood music biopic, interweaving the two into this bizarre melange that absolutely should not work , and yet miraculously does. As Perry himself quips at one point during the film, “yeah, this could be a terrible idea”, and yet somehow it feels like the only true way to represent this iconic indie rock band. A band that at every turn seems to defy the traditional arc of how a rock band should behave.

For Pavement fans, the film is loaded with archival material that will be thrilling, as well as brand new interviews that help to tell their story. You’ll also get tour footage and rehearsal footage that I must imagine will be thrilling to watch. For folks like me that are new to the band, you’ll quickly come to appreciate what they were trying to do and what they achieved.

You’ll also get to go behind the scenes of the making of “Slanted! Enchanted! A Pavement Musical”, the very real off-broadway musical starring Michael Esper ( The Creator , Ben Is Back ), Zoe Lister-Jones ( Beau is Afraid , The Craft: Legacy ), and Kathryn Gallagher ( Woman of the Hour ). While this may seem like a joke, you quickly realize just how serious the whole thing is, with director Perry emphasizing how much he loves the form of musical theatre and the sincerity it allows for. It can seem at times bizarre, and absurd, until you end up seeing excerpts from the show itself and realize how right Perry was, and just how well these songs translate to the stage.

But I think the part I enjoyed most was the excerpts from, and behind the scenes making of, Range Life . Perry’s deconstruction (or evisceration) of the tired clichés of musical biopics is not only highly entertaining, but at times laugh-out loud funny. There’s an element of I’m Still Here to the whole affair; where the line between reality and fiction seem to blur to the point that you’re not entirely sure if Keery really is unable to shake his Stephen Malkmus persona, or if he’s merely taking the mick out of those who make similar claims (remember Austin Butler and Elvis anyone). The film never “breaks character” and always plays these moments “straight”, which only makes them that much better. It’s these moments where fact and fiction collide that the film truly sings, becoming truly unlike anything put forward before. At times it’s reminiscent of Orson Welles’ masterpiece F for Fake , both in the way in which the film presents fiction as reality, but also in its editorial construction. Robert Greene manages to keep you constantly engaged despite the ever changing narrative focus. It’s truly something to behold.

In many ways Pavements defies categorization, but that’s what makes it so special and unique. It’s both an examination of a seminal ’90s indie rock band, and a complete deconstruction of the musical documentary form. It is undoubtedly unlike anything you’ll see this year, and probably unlike anything you’ll ever see again.

Pavements begins streaming on Mubi on July 11th.