Grace Jones bio pic Bloodlight and Bami closed the Adelaide Film Festival for 2017.
Bloodlight being the light that illuminates whilst recoring in the studio and Bami being Bread, I suppose that’s not the group! This fly on the wall style, shot over a long time period, (judging by the appearance of old mobile phones) gives an insight to the life of the artist, trekking back to her troubled past in Jamaica and the struggles she faces day to day, this is very familiar to me and my life away from the limelight.. Being owed money, having musicians refuse to perform in the recording studio or the director of a music clip creating a distasteful situation for Grace Jones. The camera is locked and planted in some situations, with Grace Jones moving from room to room as she attempts to rectify situations.
The audience has a seat at the table of her family in Jamaica, where Grace is just a regular mother and Grandmother as we soon discover. The doco has littered throughout concert footage where Grace is Queen and sometimes as an audience member watching this movie, you feel the urge to clap at the end of the song. Unfortunately the experience lasts nearly 2 hours and whilst not very cinematic, you feel the doco dragging along, where as I would have as a producer gone snip, snip, snip and added that footage for devotees in extras for the disc release.
Damian Woodards, comedian and film-maker.
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