GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI: Portrait Of The Artist As An Uncompromising Queen

There are very few artists that deserve to be described as one of a kind. Grace Jones is one of them. The Jamaica-born, Upstate New York-raised model, singer, and actor has perfected her uniquely androgynous and magnetic stage presence throughout the decades, from her early days in the New York disco scene to her scene-stealing role as May Day in the James Bond film A View to a Kill all the way to the present. She strives to tell a story in everything she does, whether it be through her outrageous on-stage ensembles or deeply personal song lyrics about her family.

Sophie Fiennes’s brilliant new documentary Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami provides an eye-opening look at both the private and public lives of one of the world’s most consummate artists. Fiennes followed Jones for five years, documenting everything from the recording of her album Hurricane to an introspective encounter with her ex-lover and longtime artistic collaborator Jean-Paul Goude to a family trip home to Spanish Town in Jamaica. And of course, the film is punctuated by several performances of Jones’s most legendary songs, in which Jones shows that while she might be a grandmother now, she sure as hell isn’t slowing down – on stage or off.

La Vie En Grace

In Jamaican patois, “bloodlight” is the red light that shows when an artist is recording in the studio, while “bami” is a traditional Jamaican flatbread. These two words are the perfect encapsulation of the contrasting sides of Jones we see in Fiennes’s film. We see Jones in the recording studio, viciously chewing out musicians over the phone for not following through on plans and then entering an almost zen state as she begins singing. This album, Jones’s first of original material in 19 years, was self-funded, meaning that Jones’s resolve to record exactly what she had envisioned is positively unbreakable – not that it wouldn’t have been anyways.

We see Jones as the ultimate diva, looking glamorous in a fur coat in a fancy Paris hotel room as she espouses the virtues of a champagne breakfast. We see her vehemently rejecting the idea of performing her hit cover of “La Vie En Rose” surrounded by scantily clad female background dancers, telling the producer in furious, fluent French that the set-up makes her look like a madam in a brothel, surrounded by her whores. And we see her onstage, clad in a snug black bodysuit and a striking succession of avant-garde Philip Treacy headpieces, as she performs classic songs like “Slave to the Rhythm” and “Pull Up to the Bumper.” This is the “bloodlight” side of Jones, the star who knows she is a star and refuses to bend her vision to anyone else’s whims.

The “bami” side of Jones is one that may be less familiar to those who primarily know her through her on-stage performances, but if you have read her wonderfully witty memoir (titled, naturally, I’ll Never Write My Memoirs) you’ll recognize the Jones who appears in these more vulnerable moments. This is the Jones who goes to Sunday morning mass in tropical-colored resort wear (after partying all night, mind you) to support her mother, a talented singer in her own right, as she performs for the congregation.

This is the Jones that reminisces with her brothers about the terror and abuse they suffered throughout their childhood at the hands of their strict step-grandfather, Mas P. Mas P. would mete out beatings for anything that he deemed against the word of the Bible; Jones acknowledges that she channeled her fear of him into her imperious onstage persona, noting that when she performs, she is essentially imitating Mas P. While it may be disconcerting to think of Jones being intimidated by anyone, these scenes help fill in the outline of the character that Jones presents to the world and remind us that believe it or not, she too is human.

Not Another Episode of ‘Behind the Music’

In Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami, Fiennes eschews talking heads, archival footage, and other elements often overused by music documentaries to focus on how Jones lives her life from moment to moment. Yes, her past influences the way she lives her life (free and fearless, as though she is still glorying in having escaped the yoke of Mas P.) and creates her art (the Jamaican reggae sounds in her music help make it stand out in a world of predominantly Euro-centric pop songs).

But Fiennes allows us to come to this conclusion by watching and listening to Jones herself, instead of others who would speak on her behalf. And really, who would want it any other way when you have Jones delivering impossibly delicious sound bites like “Sometimes you have to be a high-flying bitch” and describing how she wishes she could have Timothy Leary holding her hand when she dies?

The film is shot in a fly-on-the-wall cinéma vérité style that feels appropriately unconventional for a movie about someone as unusual as Jones. Just like the woman at its center, the film is uncompromising in its style and vision. The concert performances are shot on 16mm film instead of the digital used for the rest of the documentary, giving them an even more beautiful and otherworldly feel. Sometimes Fiennes will simply allow the richly colored Jamaican sky to fill the screen for several seconds as a backdrop to Jones’s voice, or change up the speed of the footage to give it a more dreamlike quality.

The film is not organized chronologically but rather by mood, with certain segments of Jones’s life followed by musical performances that almost provide commentary on those moments. For instance, a story about Jones’s mother is followed by the autobiographical “Williams’ Blood.” The songs form the narrative, just as they always have in Jones’s life. If you want a straightforward biopic outlining Jones’s life from birth until now, you’ll be disappointed in Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami. But if you’re a fan of Jones, why would you want that anyway?

Conclusion: Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami

At one point in Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami, Jones claims that even if all of the power went off during one of her shows, and she had no lights or sound, she would keep on performing – she is the performance, and she’ll go on for the sake of her audience, no matter what. It’s impossible to sum up someone as complex and contradictory as Grace Jones in one sound bite, but that one comes pretty damn close.

What do you think? Does Fiennes’s untraditional take on the music documentary sound appealing to you? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami is in theaters in the U.S. on April 13, 2018. It opened in the UK on October 27, 2017. You can find more international release dates here.