Hooray I've got the week off work! So what plans did I have conjured up? Was it to get away from it all via the airport and chill out on a beautiful sandy beach? Unfortunately not. I was on a mission this week to try and find a screening of Amy. It was a pain in the backside but thankfully by going a little further afield, I managed to find somewhere. The reasons for the extra effort were simple, the buzz. It was universally acclaimed at Cannes Film Festival earlier in the year. It wasn't even heckled and booed which is amazing for that place to be honest. Quite clearly the classy establishment of Cannes is full of bloody hooligans.
Amy is a documentary directed by Asif Kapadia and tells the story of the short life of Amy Winehouse through various outlets of footage using both unseen approved home footage by the star's friends and family as well as the national media's TV channels and paparazzi images. The film has a genuine, brutal honesty about Winehouse's struggles which was apparent not just through relentless media attention and the pressures that come with sudden fame and fortune but her problems through her childhood with depression and bulimia that sadly plagued her. The film has a continuous commentary style of narration by all of the people involved in Amy's life, her family and friends, boyfriends and the music company themselves. All the interviews are recorded by audio which plays on top of the superbly edited footage so that the focus is never diverted away from Amy herself. It's such a clever simplistic technique.
What I particularity loved about Amy was the balance and the direction that the film took, reminding the audience of her highlights and what was so good about her life, her unique voice and her songwriting ability. It surprised me at how much the film focused on her downward spirals into constricting alcohol and drug addiction that led to her tragic demise which at times was physically hard to watch especially with all the flash photography in the clips of Winehouse's attempts of escaping the media circus that she never wanted to be apart of. The horrific truth of 21st century tabloid media. The documentary goes into intimate details about her relationships with her family and her ex-boyfriends, some such as her close friends and managers tried to point her on the correct path whilst others such as her father, used her fame and money for their own gain rather than for Amy's best interests. The family aka her dad has publicly expressed his anger at the film stating that:
"The film is representing me in a not very good way. There is no balance. It's portraying me and Amy in not a very good light. Half of me wants to say don't go see it. But then the other part of me is saying maybe go see the videos, put your headphones in and listen to Amy's music while they're watching the videos. It's the narrative that's the problem."
Funny coming from a man who authorised not only this film's production but created a reality TV show at the height of his daughter's fame without her permission. Hypocrisy at its finest. When you hear the other side of the story through an archived interview, you begin to realise that Mitch Winehouse really is a nasty piece of work. Amy explains in the interview that her father was never in her life through the toughest years in her childhood and that he wanted nothing to do with her. He fuels my anger unfortunately. Nothing more than a greedy talent-less money grabber......
OK I can breath now! I had to get that off my chest!
Amy is a magnificent piece of work from Asif Kapadia that is harrowing and heart-breaking to observe. You don't have to be a fan of her music to understand how difficult her life was and the cold realisation of how ultimately she fell so low to the point of becoming a regular punchline on comedy shows. A devastating look at how celebrity culture, media and drug addiction can grip hold of even the most talented of people. Brilliantly truthful and compelling.
9/10
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