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.
Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami
2017
Action / Biography / Documentary / Music
Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami
2017
Action / Biography / Documentary / Music
Plot summary
The life of the magnetic Jamaican musician, actress, model and party queen Grace Jones featuring concert performances and intimate, personal footage.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
March 27, 2018 at 03:38 AM
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLUMovie Reviews
Truest, Die-Hard Fans of Grace Jones Only!
Nope. Sorry, Grace Jones.... I Am Not Impressed
Unfortunately, I was quite mistaken to have thought (at first) that "Bloodlight and Bami" was going to be an engaging career-spanning bio-documentary about Jamaican-born pop-diva, Grace Jones.
This obviously flawed and annoyingly uneven vanity production focused in on Jones (born 1948) who was already into her 60s. And, by what I saw - I'd say that it was definitely time for this woman to grace-fully bow out of the limelight and retire, asap.
I, for one, certainly found that Jones's persona could only be tolerated in very small doses. 'Cause (as I soon discovered while watching this 2-hour presentation) - Jones continually tried (way too hard) to be larger-than-life even in everyday activities.
And - Yep. Before long - It all became a bit of a bore. (ho-hum!)
Deleted scenes from a documentary (plus some concert footage)
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?)