We all know Amy Winehouse. That husky voice complementing that jazzy music so perfectly, it flings us in fantasy-land.
But we don't quite know the girl Asif Kapadia shows us in Amy, a devastating account of the rise and eventual untimely death of the songbird for whom fame and frenzy became too much to handle. But here's the thing: this isn't just another account of her life. We know how it is going to end. But how we get there is where the real essence of Amy lies.
What catches your attention right away is how Kapadia treats the material. A teenaged and sassy Winehouse carols the birthday song with her friends, carols for a group of people who are going to turn her into the Amy Winehouse we knew through newspapers, and there is a naiveness about her that simply cannot be overlooked. Swiftly, we recognize her as one of us, one of those commonplace folk who do commonplace things. And it is a particularly impressive move because of the impact it has on us; just like that, we are watching closely. Although I do understand why Kapadia decided to start with this particular clip, for this is a clip filmed way before fame touched her and therefore it gives us a glimpse into the ordinariness of a girl for whom life was about to catch off-guard, I wanted to know how she was professionally. But I needn't have worried. Kapadia takes good care of our queries.
After establishing her milieu neatly, we move on to how she fared in the competitive environment. We hear the voices of her manager, her album producers, best pals, then-boyfriend, documenting her life at every moment and every turn till she became the Amy Winehouse we know. The footage intercuts between her personal and professional lives, and we see how one Amy slowly but surely turned into two different Amys, and it's ruffling.
The story of Amy Winehouse's affair with fame unfolds chronologically, and each sequence gives us an inkling of the extent of the intimidating research Kapadia and his team have put into it. It is like a jigsaw puzzle; he knows where the pieces go, but the way he manages to coerce her associates and family to divulge everything they know about her and assemble the details together into a coherent whole is truly laudable. I say the research is intimidating because even though we might know where the story is heading, what path it follows to its conclusion, we are still under the illusion that we are watching a person we never knew through a microscope. The use of her euphonic music is ingenious; in parts, Kapadia uses her songs to describe phases in her life, and for once we don't listen to them as songs. We find a whole world of meaning behind those lyrics, and begin to comprehend the person who wrote them.
Ultimately, Amy is devastating. It is not easy to mature with someone for over two hours and feel like we have known them our whole life, and then see their descent into eternal silence. Kapadia makes sure we get to mingle with not only the star but also the woman behind it. And one of Amy's -- and Kapadia's -- smaller successes is that we see a woman whom we can relate to in the early parts, and then observe her slowly alienating as we get to know her better. By the end, we are not even sure we knew the same person we wanted to know when we first saw her. And the discovery is shattering.
But we don't quite know the girl Asif Kapadia shows us in Amy, a devastating account of the rise and eventual untimely death of the songbird for whom fame and frenzy became too much to handle. But here's the thing: this isn't just another account of her life. We know how it is going to end. But how we get there is where the real essence of Amy lies.
What catches your attention right away is how Kapadia treats the material. A teenaged and sassy Winehouse carols the birthday song with her friends, carols for a group of people who are going to turn her into the Amy Winehouse we knew through newspapers, and there is a naiveness about her that simply cannot be overlooked. Swiftly, we recognize her as one of us, one of those commonplace folk who do commonplace things. And it is a particularly impressive move because of the impact it has on us; just like that, we are watching closely. Although I do understand why Kapadia decided to start with this particular clip, for this is a clip filmed way before fame touched her and therefore it gives us a glimpse into the ordinariness of a girl for whom life was about to catch off-guard, I wanted to know how she was professionally. But I needn't have worried. Kapadia takes good care of our queries.
After establishing her milieu neatly, we move on to how she fared in the competitive environment. We hear the voices of her manager, her album producers, best pals, then-boyfriend, documenting her life at every moment and every turn till she became the Amy Winehouse we know. The footage intercuts between her personal and professional lives, and we see how one Amy slowly but surely turned into two different Amys, and it's ruffling.
The story of Amy Winehouse's affair with fame unfolds chronologically, and each sequence gives us an inkling of the extent of the intimidating research Kapadia and his team have put into it. It is like a jigsaw puzzle; he knows where the pieces go, but the way he manages to coerce her associates and family to divulge everything they know about her and assemble the details together into a coherent whole is truly laudable. I say the research is intimidating because even though we might know where the story is heading, what path it follows to its conclusion, we are still under the illusion that we are watching a person we never knew through a microscope. The use of her euphonic music is ingenious; in parts, Kapadia uses her songs to describe phases in her life, and for once we don't listen to them as songs. We find a whole world of meaning behind those lyrics, and begin to comprehend the person who wrote them.
Ultimately, Amy is devastating. It is not easy to mature with someone for over two hours and feel like we have known them our whole life, and then see their descent into eternal silence. Kapadia makes sure we get to mingle with not only the star but also the woman behind it. And one of Amy's -- and Kapadia's -- smaller successes is that we see a woman whom we can relate to in the early parts, and then observe her slowly alienating as we get to know her better. By the end, we are not even sure we knew the same person we wanted to know when we first saw her. And the discovery is shattering.
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