Review of Amy (2015) by Fungusgnat — 20 Jul 2015

What really struck me about this film of the rise and fall of Amy Winehouse was how much material there was to work from. Granted, she was a big star, but there’s plenty of fascinating private footage from the years prior to that, from camcorders large and small.

Another striking aspect of the movie is how fine a film Kapadia has made, _desipte_ the wealth of footage available. He does not yield to temptations to stray from his main concern--the conflict, as it were, between the woman and her music. When she’s on, she lights herself up and everyone who’s with her, but it’s impossible to escape the realization that to Winehouse, music was a tool she used to stay sane—until she became a star and artistic success fed back negatively to her health and well-being. Kapadia has kept his treatment of the final years of Winehouse’s story both unsparing and unsentimental. (To be fair, some family members, and a few critics, challenge Kapadia’s narrative.).

Kapadia’s film is a very stylish one, where dark and grainy passages seem to be as much an artistic choice as a technical constraint – and most of the time, we can still tell what’s going on! He also helpfully floats the song lyrics across the screen.

This is a must-see for Winehouse fans (while the story is tragic, the film is not morose), and pop music aficionados in general as well as docu devotees will find lots to chew on.