John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky

Your enjoyment on documentaries about artists often depend on how much you like the artists. If you're a huge fan of John Lennon you're gonna love the insight this doc brings into the making of Imagine, if you don't like either John or Yoko you'll find more reasons to hate them. I'm a bit indifferent and thought it was quite informative and enjoyed it for the insight into the mind of one of music's biggest influences.

I was amazed at the unseen footage. It was well edited and thoughtfully done, with interviews of people telling nuggets of details about the album. He was an incredible human being - and his message is needed even more now with the problems we're facing across the globe.

Not different by many other biographic films, it is the portrait of the genesis of an emblematic song. Seductive for confessions and pieces of real life and seductive for the grace to define a time, for generosity of Yoko Ono Lennon and for the wise footage, it represents a remember and inspired definition of the art and its seed - the relation between so special people.

I'm not a film critic but I am a big documentary fan and lived through the Beatles and John Lennon's life. (I'm 63). I learned a lot I didn't know from this documentary, mostly about John and Yoko's relationship and how she was really his muse. To be honest I mostly thought of her as the strange woman who howled unintelligibly and broke up the Beatles. But there's so much more to the story. This is a film about music, love, social change, war, art and the media (and a lot more!). I would say there are a few too many talking head interviews but none of them are superfluous and they all add to the story and commentary. Just wish I could have seen more of John and Yoko (there's a lot but the film alludes to thousands of hours of film). Mostly I was left inspired by their creativity and willingness to take on the critics and the media and blaze their own path. Their idealism and vision was so beautiful and yet the world is an even darker place today. Yet we can always Imagine and that gives hope.

Since 1972 roughly every 10-15 years the footage collected from the Imagine album recording sessions is repackaged into a new film/documentary. So you will watch the same scenes in either:

Imagine (1972) - the original film, mostly cheesy a music special Imagine: John Lennon (1988) - a more expansive look into John's life Gimme Some Truth (2000) - more focused on the recording sessions Above Us Only The Sky (2018) - the most recent repackaging

It seems redundant to watch them all but all of them have different goals. I found Gimme Some Truth the most enjoyable because the footage itself tells the history and the focus is the music.

Above Us Only The Sky in other hand feels MORE LIKE a PR piece with the function of maintaining the Lennon's image of a pacifist and raising Yoko's profile. Not a bad documentary but too thin. It features some forgettable present day interviews with people involved with Lennon at the time. The most noteworthy appearance is of Julian Lennon, often at odds with Yoko.