For a decade now, the posthumous David Bowie industry has been in full, unremitting swing. There have been umpteen reissues, box sets, books, documentaries, exhibitions and an ever-expanding range of merchandise that occasionally makes you wonder if there’s anything on which that quote about not knowing where he’s going but promising it won’t be boring can’t be printed. After 10 years, the possibility that the public might be suffering from Bowie fatigue has been raised, but the appetite seems insatiable. Hence You’re Not Alone, an hour-long 360-degree film directed by Mark Grimmer – lead designer for the V&A’s blockbusting 2013 exhibition David Bowie Is – showing at London’s “immersive exhibition space” Lightroom.

A lot of what’s been produced since Bowie’s death is clearly aimed at diehard fans. You’re Not Alone sets itself a trickier task: keeping them onside while appealing to a younger audience, allegedly more resistant to Bowie’s allure than those who remember his imperial phases first-hand. You sense the desire to cater to the latter in the way it concentrates on Bowie’s biggest-streaming songs: you get a lot of Let’s Dance, but no mention of Ashes to Ashes or Sound and Vision.

The big draw for old hands is the unseen footage of him performing at Earls Court in 1978, which is great, although there’s more than that on an Easter-egg level. The show’s use of multiple camera feeds from DA Pennebaker’s film of Bowie’s final Ziggy Stardust show in 1973 – and indeed the sheer size at which the footage is screened – mean you really notice the absolutely filthy look bassist Trevor Boulder shoots Bowie during the climactic performance of Rock’n’Roll Suicide: in fairness, Bowie has just tacitly informed Boulder he’s out of a job in front of 5,000 people.

Estate-approved, You’re Not Alone offers a distinctly sanitised version of Bowie’s career, with the scrabbling try-anything pre-Ziggy years largely expunged (which means not just passing over The Laughing Gnome, but Hunky Dory to boot), no direct references to bisexuality – unless you count the sight of Bowie camply fluttering his eyelashes during the famous Top of the Pops performance of Starman – no flirtation with fascism, mullet-sporting Glass Spider era or indeed membership of Tin Machine. An interview featuring Bowie addressing the way his lunge for mainstream commerciality on Let’s Dance quickly sent him into an artistic tailspin is followed by the suggestion said artistic tailspin was rectified with the release of 1993’s Black Tie White Noise: hmmm. Still, the surround sound succeeds in burnishing his undervalued 90s oeuvre, lending both the industrial-influenced I’m Afraid of Americans and the drum’n’bass experiments of Little Wonder a literally bum-shaking power: they sound fantastic.

And, ultimately, what is here is more than spectacular enough – and indeed genuinely immersive enough – to make you overlook what isn’t, whether due to time constraints or discreet airbrushing. It does a great job of tricking you into thinking that you’re in the audience for the aborted initial leg of the 1974 Diamond Dogs tour. There’s a fantastic moment when Bowie discusses the impact of William Burroughs’ cut-up technique on his writing, and pieces of paper on which he’d scribbled fragments of lyrics litter the floor beneath your feet: similarly, when he talks about Brian Eno’s influence on his approach to recording, you find yourself surrounded by handwritten prototypes of Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards.

During the section dealing with his Berlin years, the room feels authentically grubby, suddenly chilly and a little claustrophobic: set in that context, “Heroes” is rescued from its grim latter-day fate as an air-punch-inducing, straightforwardly celebratory sporting montage soundtrack, and given its ambiguous quotation marks back. Everyone knows Bowie’s prescient views on the impact of the internet on society – the famous Jeremy Paxman interview that continually does the rounds on social media gets another airing here – but it turns out that Bowie’s crystal ball was also pretty clear when it came to the way pop music was headed: subject to a “demystification process – it’s becoming more about the audience,” he avers a little sadly at one point, some years before anyone approvingly described a pop star as “relatable”. “It’s almost as if the artist needs to accompany the audience”.

Given the number of times you hear him talking about concealing himself behind the theatricality of his performances, and discussing his desire to “think myself into another person” onstage over the course of the film, there’s a certain degree of chutzpah involved in drawing to a conclusion with an ostensibly emotional reading of the ballad The Loneliest Guy from Bowie’s final live performance in 2004. He might well have been playing a role that night too, but it’s presented as if it offers a glimpse into his soul, prefaced with interview clips of him discussing ageing and his fear of death. And yet, it works in context, disarming your quibbles and packing a suitably tear-jerking punch. It feels like You’re Not Alone in miniature: you can certainly pick holes in it if you like, but while it’s happening, it’s hard not to be swept away.

• David Bowie: You’re Not Alone is at Lightroom, London, 22 April to 4 October