Bernard McMahon’s Becoming Led Zeppelin is precisely what I want from a music documentary. It is a combination of new and archival interviews, footage of a much-loved rock band in performance, and most importantly driven by a very specific and well-considered creative approach on the material. The key is in the title: rather than present a beginning-to-end history of the band it focuses directly on its origins. With a more modest goal the film finds much more room to truly succeed. It is one of the most satisfying films I have seen this year.

The surviving members of Led Zeppelin – Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and Robert Plant – have long resisted participating in a documentary about their band, so it is a genuine pleasure to see them discuss it here. The late drummer John Bonham is present via a previously unheard audio interview conducted before his death in 1980. Theirs are the only voices one hears during the film, which has a profound effect: this is not so much a documentary about the band as one about what it was like to be in that band. There is no attempt at objectivity. Instead, this is wholly subjective account. It is all the more effective for that. It makes for a hugely engaging watch.

Their story is illustrated with an astonishing variety of clips and archival recordings that provide an unprecedented view of the band and its members’ earliest days. Quite how a clip of a teenage Jimmy Page playing skiffle on the BBC survived when so many of the broadcaster’s own programs did not is a mystery – but a hugely welcome one. Other performances are captured in Scandinavia, the UK, and USA, and present a goldmine for fans of the band.

To his credit, McMahon understands when to briefly illustrate a performance and when to simply sit back and let it run its full length. It takes a lot of patience – not to mention confidence – for a music documentary to actually showcase entire songs, and in this case the patience is well-placed. Seeing the band at such an early stage, performing some of its iconic songs, is an absolute pleasure.

It helps that Jones, Page, and Plant are all such confident raconteurs, and they’re visibly very comfortable in talking about the past. Bonham is understandably more of a challenge, since we are only hearing his voice from decades ago, but it is wonderful that he remains a presence in the film at all.

There are things that Becoming Led Zeppelin does not offer its audience. Anyone wishing to see the band’s achievements contextualised in British or American popular culture will be disappointed, as will anybody hoping to see opinions of Led Zeppelin from outside of its four members. Some of the more unsavoury aspects of the band’s success are not addressed – notably Page’s notorious relationship with 14-year-old Lori Mattix – and it is open to question whether that represents a failure of the film or not. It is hardly hagiography, but by its very nature and intent this is a one-sided, very personal work.

As a personal expression, however, and as a keyhole through which one can see what being in Led Zeppelin was like, McMahon’s films is honestly pretty close to faultless.