User reviews

This is half concert film, half intimate portrait. What I took a way from it most was the stark contrast between the stunning visuals and slick production of her performances and the bare bones existence of Spanish Town in Jamaica where she was born. (Yet here's a certain tranquility to the people we meet there.) Fortunately the subject of the film is someone to whom a lot of people could listen and watch all day. For those who aren't into her, 115 minutes may seem too long, but even they would have to marvel at someone in her late sixties moving with such agility and athleticism. (She sweats buckets.) I do think she could have let her guard down a little more. I don't think we got as much of the woman behind the image as we could have, but she shares a lot of her history, and that is enough. Sophie Fiennes dad an excellent job balancing the spectacle and the person, with as much as Grace was willing to reveal.

This documentary is quite needed, many has been mesmerized by the antics of Grace Jones. The exotic myth is dispelled, filmmaker Fiennes (related to actor Ralph Fiennes) tries to show Jones's origins via beautiful snapshots of her native Jamaica with on-location candid family and friends interviews. Aside of reliving Jones's childhood memories, the documentary depicts the frustration of an artist trying to keep her creativity free from the media and music industry. The film does a full circle for this iconic pioneer in club music and performance art: Jones's life is humanized!

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.

There is no doubt Grace Jones is a great subject. For anything, be it her music, her performance or as a muse. She has a lot of history and above anything else, a character.

Who knows the direction of the director is going. I was patient for the first 30 minutes waiting for something to happen. Somewhere along the line, she probably threw her original idea up in the air and just wing it. The result is a bad cut and paste project any high school student aspiring to do a documentary about his high school glee club can surpass this mess by seven fold.

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.

Watched this and found it borderline unwatchable. While there is a story of sorts it is set out like a detective novel. You have to really be interested prior to watching because nothing pulls you in. And, I am a fan of Grace's music! The movie just jumps around - in one sequence we went from a recording studio to a bus ride, back to the studio, then a 5 second clip of some school kids and back to the studio. No one is ever introduced. You are left to figure that out on your own or you are supposed to be an insider or some kind of super-fan willing to do a bunch of homework to figure it all out. It seemed the first 45 minutes was just the same song over and over. A few nice scenes of beautiful Jamaica vistas.

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.

After four years following Grace Jones around you should have a better final product than this!

Grace is a legend! She deserves justice!

The director manages to achieve the impossible in this dull amateur production, namely to make Grace Jones look boring!!!

Grace Jones exults ultimate good taste in extremely deeply funky transcending music thanks to her amazing voice, her collaborations over the past 40 years, she demonstrates joyful art in how she masters her style and how she totally commands the show on stage. I watched the UK Premiere of Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami at the London BFI Southbank, each of the amazingly beautifully filmed song performances end by impulsive audience applause as if you're at the concert alternating with scenes that show Grace Jones's nature and her constant grasp at mastering happiness and trying to contaminate that happiness to the people around her in her life, producing good belly laughs throughout the film as we get to see who she is in her life.

I hope that this movie leads to more content from Grace Jones and from the people who agree with her taste, Please make more music like this, and please write, direct and distribute more movies like this one! She declined a role in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, I'd like to see someone to make for her a Grace Runner movie where she gets the leading role.

Unfortunately, I was quite mistaken to have thought (at first) that "Bloodlight and Bami" was going to be an engaging career-spanning bio-documentary about Jamaican-born pop-diva, Grace Jones.

This obviously flawed and annoyingly uneven vanity production focused in on Jones (born 1948) who was already into her 60s. And, by what I saw - I'd say that it was definitely time for this woman to grace-fully bow out of the limelight and retire, asap.

I, for one, certainly found that Jones's persona could only be tolerated in very small doses. 'Cause (as I soon discovered while watching this 2-hour presentation) - Jones continually tried (way too hard) to be larger-than-life even in everyday activities.

And - Yep. Before long - It all became a bit of a bore. (ho-hum!)

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

This seemed to be concert footage interlaced with what felt like deleted scenes from a making-of-the-album documentary. I guess you'd need to be pretty much obsessed with Grace Jones in order to get much out of this.

While I'm a great fan of Slave to the Rhythm, this otherwise flawed documentary helped me realise that it's Trevor Horn and the co-writers who are the geniuses when it comes to that particular song.

While Ms Jones has an interesting voice, I'm undecided as to whether she can actually sing (see her very weird reading of Amazing Grace). I'm also dubious as to her creative input; is she really just a clothes horse and a "song horse" with exceptionally diverting presence? (Perhaps Frank Sinatra could have been damned with the same faint praise?)

"Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami" (2018 release from the UK; 115 min) opens with Grace performing "Slave to the Rhythm" in concert as the opening credits roll. She greets fans after the show, and then is off to Jamaica, where she meets up with family and friends. At this point we are 10 min into the movie.

Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from Sophie Fiennes (yes, sister of Ralph). Here she is given seemingly unfettered access to Grace Jones over a period of years. More importantly, it is also understood that this is a Grace Jones-approved film in every way. This is not your typical music documentary. Fiennes does not dig into the "rise" of Grace Jones, and hence pays very little attention on how it is that she became an icon in the first place. It is simply understood and accepted that she is. The documentary is hence roughly divided up into two parts (recent concert footage; looking at Grace Jones' personal life today). While I'm sure it is all well intended, it nevertheless left me scratching my head. First, do I know Grace Jones any better after seeing this? (Not really.) Second, I am flabbergasted that the documentary ignores the past. Grace Jones was around 70 years young when this was filmed, and she continues to tour. Sadly I've never had the chance of seeing her in concert. I've never understood why festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo (which I both attended for years a while back) didn't get her to play.

"Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami" was released in the UK in 2018, but for some reason I wasn't aware of this until recently when HBO Max "suggested" it to me based on my viewing habits. As a big fan of Grace Jones, I nevertheless was underwhelmed by this and in the end this was not my cup of tea. Of course if you are a Grace Jones fan, I'd readily suggest you check this out, with low(er) expectations, and draw your own conclusion.

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

Outstanding! Outstanding! Outstanding!

It's Grace Jones; her voice is as... crisp and sharp as it was in the 1980's! Just... phenomenal!

Songs I remember, new songs that have not heard before.

Love her!

I Have Seen This At Least 4 Times The, Documentary-Concert Footage-Behind The Scenes-Personal Footage-From Jamaica To New York and So Much More and In-between... If You're a Grace Jones Fan, Find Her Beautiful In Pictures, Movies, On Stage, The Bizarre Inventive Crafted & Customized Well Designed Clothing On & Off Stage. Her Famous Appearance's at The Infamous Studio 54 (that's a whole other great topic). Jones Said "Filming Over a Span of 12 Years (she giggles and says...I stopped counting at 12)" Brilliantly Done, GR8 Concert Footage Grace Live in Various Countries & Her Body Of Art ... Just Being GRACE JONES .... She's A Living Legend.