Cate Blanchett is utterly unrecognisable as she transforms into a homeless man for new film

She's one of Australia's most stylish women, but Cate Blanchett is unrecognisable in her upcoming film, Manifesto.

The Oscar-winning actress transforms into 13 different characters for German artist Julian Rosefeldt's artsy flick, including a polished news anchor, a CEO, a grungy rocker, a puppeteer, and a homeless man.

The latter is Cate's first character in the film and, as you can see, the most shocking transformation of all.

The 90-minute film - which began as a multi-screen art installation in New York - sees Cate, 47, deliver snippets of 12 trailblazing manifestos from a variety of 20th-century art movements and individuals.

From Futurists and Dadaists, to past figures like American conceptual artist Sol LeWitt, and Karl Marx - each monologue, voiced in various accents - is stitched together to create a flowing, and slightly hypnotic story.

Just don't expect it to have a plot, per se.

It's not the first time the Melbourne-born actress has played a man. In 2008, she earned an Oscar nomination for playing folk singer Bob Dylan in I’m Not There.

Cate was recently nominated for a Tony award for her work on the play The Present, adapted by her husband, playwright Andrew Upton. The look her 51-year-old hubby likes her in best however, is a "high-school librarian".