Film Review: Amy

Amy
Directed by Asif Kapadia

Amy Winehouse was one of the great singers of her age, a 50-year old jazz singer in the body of a 20-year old.

She was a singer who had the ability to sing about herself and her world with an unrivalled frankness and passion. The film Amy by Asif Kapadia manages to capture all that showing us the singer and her world, as well as her strength and vulnerability.

Like a lot of the great films that deal with the lives of celebrity musicians, Amy is more than just a puff piece about the artist, it is a multi-layered film that explores the person, her work and the influences which both made and broke her.

Asif Kapadia has used a range of material to create this documentery from home video, cell phone footage, answerphone messages, TV interviews and newsreel footage. It has been shot by family, friends. TV, paparazzi and Amy herself.

There is footage of her early family life through to her last days, with many of her career highlights – including some of the darker moments of her life.

There are some telling moments such as her first studio rehearsal and her first big signing when she received her payment of £250,000 which allowed her to leave home, set up house and create a new life.

There is also footage of her disastrous 2011 concert in Belgrade where she was booed off the stage because she was unable to sing.

Underlying most of what happens in the film is the nature of love – the love that Amy has for her friends, family, and her father as well as her men, her fans and her music.

And there is the love she received from all of them in varying degrees. But that love seems to come at a cost. She is exploited and she exploits others as well.

We can see what is going right with her life but we can also see what is going wrong. We know what is going to happen with her life and we desperately want it not to happen but there is a surreal inevitability with her increasing fame and her personal deterioration.

The glitz and glamour also hides a slightly seamy side as when her father turns up when she is on holiday with his own TV crew who seem to be making a film about the famous father and his little daughter.

She has difficulty being a celebrity and sometimes she seems to come adrift and in one sequence she seems to evaporate in the iwhite heat of multiple flash bulbs of the paparazzi.

She uses her voice and her guitar as a way of coping with depression, trying to understand herself, her men and her relationships. We see and hear her first poems, which show her attempts to express herself.

These poems gradually evolve into the lyrics of her shattering songs like Rehab revealing deeply moving, expressions of emotions.

The film fully exposes her life and conveys both her confidence and fragility, her toughness and vulnerability. The film is both a celebration of a great singer and a bleak account of a doomed life.