La vie en Grace Jones

Why the bad reviews....excellent.. Good music...cool scenes all over the world.

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.

If you love Grace a must see For all the other people it s not really a story. Just a short inside look of her life from 2005 till 2015 Do you really see her and know more ...? It s a normal woman with the same problems like ' normal people' She' s art herself with her amazing voice... there s only one Grace A Diva like no other

Just watched this at the InEdit festival and it blew me away. The contrast between young Grace and her image at 60+ is striking, but refreshing. There is a real woman behind the diva and we get good glimpses of that thru' her family life in Jamaica, as well as beautifully shot concert footage from her Dublin performances of 2016. Not a linear script, but with such an amazing character being explored, this could be expected.

Grace Jones is a force of nature. At least a Hurricane, if not a comet about to hit the earth. The musical numbers in the movie are about the best I have ever seen in a concert film, and the recording of the music is outstanding. For that alone, the movie should be considered for an Oscar for Sound (even though it is a documentary, the Producers and Director have spent a good deal of money to make the soundtrack as perfect as possible during the concert.

For the entire length of the movie, I had the feeling that Grace was never hiding her feelings from the camera, and allowed us to see her from all angles, even the moments when she comes out from a shower naked. And she is timeless -- not only in terms of voice and performance, but in her attitude towards her family and neighbors from her childhood in Jamaica. Even though there were times when I could not understand the broken English, I sensed the love and compassion she feels for her family and friends from the Shantytowns where she grew up. At one point, she returns to the Church (where the Preacher is apparently her brother?), and where her mother sings an obscure Bluesy Religious number (in a very high Soprano, which is somewhat difficult to bear, especially having heard Grace sing in her deep voice), but Grace gives each of the clan equal respect and not once does she ever show a single moment of pretension.

Congratulations go to the Director for taking us on a personal journey. The only drawback is that the other people are not identified. I had hoped that there would be lower third titles to at least let us know who the other people in the film are, and where in Jamaica the scenes were shot.

Finally, there is Grace herself, who is a work of beauty and absolutely flawless for her age (she was performing in this movie at about age 60, and looks like she could be 35.) Her body is in perfect shape, she has gorgeous eyes and a stunningly beautiful face -- amazingly perfect in every way. A true beauty, even without makeup. During the movie, she tells her son that when she was his age, she could go dancing all night and still make it to the photo shoot the next day, and we can easily believe it.