When I started listening to The Velvet Underground and Nico — on compact disc, in the early '90s — my baby boomer dad didn't get it. "No one actually listened to them in the '60s!" he said, declaring that I'd been reading too much Rolling Stone.

It was doubtless in Rolling Stone, or one of the magazine's branded music guides, that I first read Brian Eno's statement that though the Velvet Underground's debut album only sold 30,000 copies, everyone who bought it started a band. Over half a century later, the mysterious alchemy of Andy Warhol's house band remains shrouded in mystery.

The Velvet Underground, a new documentary by Todd Haynes (Carol, I'm Not There, Far From Heaven, Velvet Goldmine), takes viewers on a two-hour journey through the band's career. It tracks their origins as Lou Reed and John Cale realize the potential for a convergence of rock music and avant-garde techniques; their sponsorship by Andy Warhol, who recognized they belonged in an art gallery as much as in a nightclub; and their fragmentation in the '70s after Reed and Cale came to loggerheads.

Incorporating original interviews with Cale, Moe Tucker, Sterling Morrison's widow Martha, and several other people whose lives intersected the Velvet Underground, Haynes creates a kaleidoscopic collage of sights and sounds that evoke the spirit of the times — from the rock and roll explosion that birthed the band; to the Factory world of silent film and droning guitars; to the paisley '70s as Reed turned back to his roots as a pop songwriter and the band sans Cale became a somewhat more conventional unit.

The film succeeds with a surprisingly lightfooted feel, not the most obvious approach for a band so closely associated with dark drones and ominous intonations. Haynes even gets Reed's sister Merrill Reed-Weiner to get up and do the Ostrich, the dance associated with the signature signal by Reed's early band the Primitives.

As the documentary notes, in the band's early years they were frighteningly intense — and yet, their catalog always left room for a gauzy warmth. When Warhol determined they needed Nico — the original elusive chanteuse — to add some star power, the band turned her poignantly distant voice into the icy icing on their cake, giving her gorgeous songs like "Sunday Morning" and "I'll Be Your Mirror" that seemed to stop time in a very different way than, say, "Venus in Furs."

That song's explosive opening provides the film's introduction as the band's name roars across the screen, the one point where Haynes tries to convey the overwhelming aspect of the Velvet Underground's power. Jonathan Richman, a devoted fan who saw the band dozens of times (they spent a lot of time in Boston), recounts how after a song like "Sister Ray," the audience would let seconds of quiet elapse before applauding. As one source after another recounts, the Velvet Underground were simply unlike any other band.

While Haynes doesn't entirely shrink from the more troubling aspects of the band's career ("It was not a good place for women," Factory visitor Amy Taubin says about the Factory), his focus is on celebrating the band's liberating spirit. Tucker and Morrison emerge as endearing figures, faithful to the band's vision but also stabilizing forces in a band centered on Reed's mercurial energy and Cale's musical daring. Doug Yule, who replaced Cale, is portrayed as a hard-working yeoman who kept the band afloat in their twilight years.

Although stars like Richman and Jackson Browne (whose brief journey through Warhol's orbit included some gigs playing guitar behind Nico) pop up, this isn't the kind of documentary filled with talking heads testifying to the Velvet Underground's influence. Haynes's focus is on making the most of his access to primary sources, while still evoking the band's achievements in a way that's accessible to newcomers.

Poignantly, the film ends with a reunion between Reed and Warhol shortly before the latter's death in 1987. Yes, Reed affirms, he's still in touch with Tucker and Cale. Although it was Reed who signaled the band's split from Warhol after just one album, their enduring connection is apparent. Peel slowly and see.