If you’re a veteran Mac user, and particularly if your loyalty traces back to the earliest days of the Mac, the documentary film MacHEADS is about you.

The mirror that Israeli filmmakers Kobi and Ron Shely hold up to the Mac community is at turns flattering and embarrassing as it examines its subject from many angles.

The film premiered at Macworld in January and was released to the public Jan. 27.

Much of the footage was shot in 2007, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at Macworld. Early on in the 55-minute film we see a lot of the folks who showed up at Moscone West in San Francisco in the wee hours of the morning in the hope of gaining entry to the Jobs keynote.

They came from all over the world, a testament to the fervor of the most devoted members of the Mac community. It’s simultaneously inspiring and vaguely disturbing.

Perhaps the wackiest of the lot is a bearded man wearing a t-shirt bearing an image of Steve Jobs. After showing off a belt buckle with a scrolling light message that reads, “Thanks Steve,” he proudly points out he’s wearing something he calls a “Utilikilt.”

Later in the film this guy says, “Steve knows what we want, and we agree with him,” proudly embracing the stereotype of the Kool-Aid-drinking Mac fanatic. Yikes.

Fortunately, the filmmakers also spend a lot of time with many well-known personalities in the Mac community, such as former chief Mac evangelist Guy Kawasaki, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Andy Ihnatko and Shawn King of the Internet audio show “Your Mac Life.”

King in particular delivers much-needed perspective throughout MacHEADS. “It’s just another company,” King observes, warning those who believe in Apple’s beneficence to keep in mind it remains a for-profit enterprise.

“It’s the [user] community you want to talk about. It’s the community that’s cool,” King says. “Don’t love Apple, love the community.”

MacHEADS tries to give as complete a picture of the Mac community as possible – how it started, what keeps it going, what sort of people are drawn to it. For the most part, it hits the mark.

The film is divided into several sections. After the introductory sequence with the folks in line for the keynote, MacHEADS delves into the early days of the Mac with some impressive old footage, including the very first Macworld and period interviews with founders of the Berkeley Mac Users Group.

A grim segment follows on how the most loyal members of the Mac community struggled to keep the faith through the dark days of the mid-1990s, when Apple nearly went out of business.

Then we see how Apple’s revival has thrilled Mac users while weakening the bonds that hold the community together.

The last segment, “The Cult of Jobs,” focuses on the borderline excessive reverence the Mac community has for Steve Jobs, de facto guru of the Mac “cult.”

One of the recurring themes in MacHEADS is how much Mac owners love their machines, sometimes to apparently unhealthy extremes. The first person we see in the film admits his obsession with Macs has “kept me isolated, kept me from having a life, kept me from having a wife.”

A more striking example takes place in New York’s legendary Tekserve, where Mac owners bring their ailing machines for repair. Forlorn Mac owners sit in a waiting area, cradling their disabled iMacs and MacBooks on their laps while stroking them like a beloved pet.

I love my Macs, too, but I don’t think I’m that bad.

Near the end of MacHEADS several long-time Mac users express concern that Apple seemed less involved with the Mac community than it had been during its "beleaguered" days.

Several Macworld 2007 attendees say they’re disappointed at the company’s emphasis on the iPhone and iPod while apparently ignoring the Mac.

The Mac personalities all point out that once Apple became a successful business again, it no longer needed to court its customers as Mac evangelists.

“The Mac community scares Apple,” King says bluntly. “Apple’s all about control. It can’t control these people.”

One nitpick I have with MacHEADS is that I don’t think it makes enough of a distinction between the shrinking Mac user groups that consist largely of original members from the 1980s and the far larger Mac community that flourishes on the Internet.

In the film, the folks who continue to meet in person lament the loss of the social aspect of the Mac user groups. I don’t disagree, but a lot of the old camaraderie and willingness to help each other solve problems lives on in Mac online forums.

All in all though, MacHEADS does an excellent job of portraying the Mac community in all its oddball glory. Every Mac devotee should see it.

You can rent it online from Amazon’s video on demand service for $2.99 or buy the download for $9.99. The iTunes Store offers MacHEADS as a $3.99 rental or $14.99 download. Don’t ask me why Apple charges more than Amazon. Or you can buy the DVD here.