La vie en Grace Jones

source: Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami

"Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami" (2018 release from the UK; 115 min) opens with Grace performing "Slave to the Rhythm" in concert as the opening credits roll. She greets fans after the show, and then is off to Jamaica, where she meets up with family and friends. At this point we are 10 min into the movie. Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from Sophie Fiennes (yes, sister of Ralph). Here she is given seemingly unfettered access to Grace Jones over a period of years. More importantly, it is also understood that this is a Grace Jones-approved film in every way. This is not your typical music documentary. Fiennes does not dig into the "rise" of Grace Jones, and hence pays very little attention on how it is that she became an icon in the first place. It is simply understood and accepted that she is. The documentary is hence roughly divided up into two parts (recent concert footage; looking at Grace Jones' personal life today). While I'm sure it is all well intended, it nevertheless left me scratching my head. First, do I know Grace Jones any better after seeing this? (Not really.) Second, I am flabbergasted that the documentary ignores the past. Grace Jones was around 70 years young when this was filmed, and she continues to tour. Sadly I've never had the chance of seeing her in concert. I've never understood why festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo (which I both attended for years a while back) didn't get her to play. "Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami" was released in the UK in 2018, but for some reason I wasn't aware of this until recently when HBO Max "suggested" it to me based on my viewing habits. As a big fan of Grace Jones, I nevertheless was underwhelmed by this and in the end this was not my cup of tea. Of course if you are a Grace Jones fan, I'd readily suggest you check this out, with low(er) expectations, and draw your own conclusion.

This film isn't a career retrospective or a treatise on the importance and influence of Grace Jones. (Someone should feel free to do either or both of those.) The director starts filming Ms. Jones in the mid-2000s and simply observes her on stage and off. She follows her home to Jamaica, where the diva mellows into a daughter, sister and parishioner. She watches her record her 2008 album "Hurricane" and become a grandmother. There's a trip to church where Ms. Jones's brother, Noel, preaches and her mother sings "His Eye Is on the Sparrow." There's a night spent clubbing. Ms. Jones was in her mid-50s when the movie finds her and turns 72 next month. So for someone whose hits include the 1981 masterpiece of metaphor, "Pull Up to the Bumper," and who was a fixture at New York's Studio 54, her partying seems less like a splurge and more like a form of exercise. We're not given any kind of chronology. We're left to guess about what year it is or what city the shows are in. But concepts of time, space and location might actually be besides the point when your movie stars a Grace Jones who's determined to look inward the way she does on "Hurricane," the most obviously personal and autobiographical of her albums. And we watch Ms. Jones ruminate about the source of all that scariness and intimidation in her stage persona. It's her abusive stepfather, and he's got a hold on her still. This particular return to Jamaica appears to have stirred up a lot for her. Grace Jones is an iconoclast, basically. And I imagine a downside of iconoclasm is you never get to be a human being. This is someone whose long career as a model, actress and undervalued musician has veered, sometimes uncomfortably, into both the sub- and superhuman. Ms. Jones is at her most vampiric but also her most free. Recommended for the truest, die-hard fans of Grace Jones. For all others, read between the above lines.

Outstanding! Outstanding! Outstanding! It's Grace Jones; her voice is as... crisp and sharp as it was in the 1980's! Just... phenomenal! Songs I remember, new songs that have not heard before. Love her!

The director manages to achieve the impossible in this dull amateur production, namely to make Grace Jones look boring!!!

If you love Grace a must see For all the other people it s not really a story. Just a short inside look of her life from 2005 till 2015 Do you really see her and know more ...? It s a normal woman with the same problems like ' normal people' She' s art herself with her amazing voice... there s only one Grace A Diva like no other

This seemed to be concert footage interlaced with what felt like deleted scenes from a making-of-the-album documentary. I guess you'd need to be pretty much obsessed with Grace Jones in order to get much out of this. While I'm a great fan of Slave to the Rhythm, this otherwise flawed documentary helped me realise that it's Trevor Horn and the co-writers who are the geniuses when it comes to that particular song. While Ms Jones has an interesting voice, I'm undecided as to whether she can actually sing (see her very weird reading of Amazing Grace). I'm also dubious as to her creative input; is she really just a clothes horse and a "song horse" with exceptionally diverting presence? (Perhaps Frank Sinatra could have been damned with the same faint praise?)

Why the bad reviews....excellent.. Good music...cool scenes all over the world.

Just watched this at the InEdit festival and it blew me away. The contrast between young Grace and her image at 60+ is striking, but refreshing. There is a real woman behind the diva and we get good glimpses of that thru' her family life in Jamaica, as well as beautifully shot concert footage from her Dublin performances of 2016. Not a linear script, but with such an amazing character being explored, this could be expected.

This documentary is quite needed, many has been mesmerized by the antics of Grace Jones. The exotic myth is dispelled, filmmaker Fiennes (related to actor Ralph Fiennes) tries to show Jones's origins via beautiful snapshots of her native Jamaica with on-location candid family and friends interviews. Aside of reliving Jones's childhood memories, the documentary depicts the frustration of an artist trying to keep her creativity free from the media and music industry. The film does a full circle for this iconic pioneer in club music and performance art: Jones's life is humanized!