Nailah Jefferson is an excellent director. There are only a few documentary filmmakers in her generation who are as talented. This is a very well edited, meticulously researched and beautifully executed documentary about not only the first Black/multi racial supermodel, but one of the most mercurial and mint original public figures of the 1960s and 70s. Donyale Luna literally defines and defied virtually all expectations of what a public figure of any race should be. The background score is superlative along with the moving and surreal animated sequences based on Donyale Luna's own artwork. Jefferson and her team should be praised for officially bringing Donyale Luna back fully into the consciousness decades after she faded into niche level obscurity.
That said omitting documentation that Donyale Luna identified as multiracial and was ancestrally multi racial with a biracial mother (her maternal grandfather immigrated to the United States from Germany ) was a bad call. Donyale Luna boldly challenged and had little time for racial constructs. Starting in her teens she devised different stories about her heritage alongside an evolving racial identity. This has both intrigued and angered scholars and pedestrian fans of hers alike. Thus even a brief survey of her genealogy should've been top priority for any documentarian. Her mother was biracial and we're not told this? Why? Culturally, ancestrally and unapologetically she was both Black and multiracial The arcane One Drop construct that Donyale Luna herself eschewed was disappointing to see here.
Despite the great research and archival material many questions remain answered and key events omitted or barely illuminated. Donyale Luna was the only Black/multi racial female to be part of the major white centered artistic and cultural movement movements of the late 60s and 70s. Unfortunately Warhol's Factory is barely touched upon. The Rolling Stones Rock 'n' Roll Circus, (the most storied rock event after Woodstock) is not even mentioned by name! London overall, including a racist incident she and Mia Farrow experienced at the Cavendish hotel is unexplored, and her work in Italian cinema barely covered. Public figures like Keith Richards and Peggy Moffat appear and we're not given subtitles.
Granted Jefferson is a millennial so these cultural phenomenons and figures are either completely unknown or not as important to her generation as they are to Boomers and Generation X which is perfectly understandable. It also leaves the door open for someone with a vast knowledge of pop-culture history to do a deeper survey of her career. And in all fairness documentaries simply can't cover everything.
Structurally the first half is a standard documentary, most of the second half is more of a reality style look at her daughter Dream and her father, Donyale's second husband, Luigi, (her first, mysterious marriage is not mentioned). The timeline of the documentary is frustratingly told out of sequence. While Nailah Jefferson stated this was to create an avant-garde feel in keeping with its subject, an out of sequence timeline for a person largely shrouded in mystery has its limitations.
For instance, the grotesque racism expressed by fashion titan Diana Vreeland regarding Donyale being cut from Vogue's Great Caravan photo shoot occurred in 1965/1966. The recounting of this event by Jefferson in v/o conversation with Beverly Johnson, (whose response serves as one of the most important Black female moments EVER captured on film) makes it appears to have taken place in the 1970s. Understandably Jefferson wanted to save this powerful moment for the last third of the documentary, but implying that she might've been living in France or Italy by this point means we don't get the complete snake pit portrait of what the the New York fashion world was for her as a Black/multiracial woman when she was starting out. There was a reason why she never returned to the USA after the late 60s. The truncated timeline gives you the impression that she was still working in US fashion into the 1970s.
Jefferson is an excellent director and there was no better medium to bring Donyale Luna back to the public consciousness than Donyale Luna SUPERMODEL. While she ideally could have taken more chances regarding self identity, racial heritage or answered more questions via her death coupled with her extensive drug use (played down to a baffling extent here) the subject matter awaits future historians and filmmakers.
