Released
under
the
PVR
Director's
Rare
banner,
director
Asif
Kapadia's
documentary
"Amy" gives
an
up,
close
and
personal
insight
into
the
short,
volatile
and
dichotomous
life
of
the
jazz
diva,
Amy
Winehouse.
While
being
her
own
person
and
true
to
herself
as
an
artist,
she
created
a
niche
for
herself
as
a
"natural
true
jazz
singer" in
a
short
span
of
time
with
a
beehive
bouffant
and
soulful,
raw
sound
and
street
style
Jazz
music.
But
she
was
also
cursed
with
an
array
of
dysfunctional
traits
that
eventually
blew
up
into
an
inferno
of
public
self-destruction.
This
film
encapsulates
her
personal
and
professional
life
till
her
death.
Structurally,
the
narration
is
in
a
linear
format,
which
rolls
off
with
her
celebrating
her
friend's
fourteenth
birthday
at
her
house
and
then
alternates
between
her
belting
jazz
songs
and
flirtatious
moments
in
the
cab
and
elsewhere,
revealing
her
life
like
the
pendulum
swing
from
one
extreme
to
the
next.
There
is
no
plot
to
the
narration,
just
revelations.
Crafted
from
numerous
interviews
and
loads
of
archival
footage,
the
film
fleshes
out
a
nuanced
character
portrait
from
a
familiar
"Behind
the
Music"
arc:
prodigious
child
from
a
broken
home
reluctantly
finds
fame,
then
self-destroys,
potential
unfulfilled,
with
a
hand
from
enablers
in
her
inner
circle,
she
resurfaces
once
again
only
to
fail.
The
film
reveals;
how
she
turned
into
a
rebel
after
her
parents'
divorce
when
she
was
nine
years
old
and
how
her
songs
were
an
extension
of
her
life,
her
experiences.
"My
songs
are
confessional
with
a
punch," she
reveals
bluntly.
It
also
traces;
her
pining
for
her
father
and
a
"stronger
than
me"
personality
in
her
life,
her
rocky
relationships
-
including
her
marriage
to
Blake
Fielder-Civil,
a
fellow
addict
who
says
he
introduced
her
to
hard
drugs,
her
binge
drinking
as
well
as
her
largely
overlooked
bulimia.
While
the
director
avoids
definitive
finger-pointing,
there
is
enough
blame
and
guilt
to
go
around,
with
Janis
Winehouse,
her
mother
saying,
"I
was
not
strong
enough
to
stop
her," and
her
father
insisting,
"There
is
no
need
to
go
to
rehab"
and
later
at
another
instance
saying,
"Amy
was
an
adult,
who
could
never
be
told
what
she
could
and
could
not
do."
Visually,
there
are
many
unseen
before
clips
and
some
shot
by
Winehouse
herself,
accompanied
by
vividly
candid
current-day
audio
commentary
by
those
who
knew
her
best.
For,
instance
her
ex-husband
Blake
Fielder
Civil,
her
friends
-
Juliette
Ashby
and
Lauren
Gilbert,
her
first
manager
Nick
Shymansky,
producer
Salaam
Remi,
her
security
guard
and
the
various
studio
heads.
Sometimes,
it
feels
as
if
we
are
eavesdropping
on
day-to-day
conversations
rather
than
just
hearing
the
usual
litany
of
cliches
and
regrets.
What
makes
this
film
exceptional
is
the
candid
moments
delivered
through
the
brilliantly
edited
combination
of
archive
footage
culled
from
home-video
footage,
video
cameras,
mobile
phones,
newsreels,
paparazzi
clips
and
TV
shows.
The
film
is
brilliantly
layered
with
fine
editing
by
Chris
King,
where
Amy
Winehouse's
music
is
layered
over
her
lyrics
in
handwritten
fonts,
which
float
on
screen,
creating
an
illusion
of
a
personal
journal
telling
her
tale
from
start
to
finish.
Overall,
it
is
a
highly
engrossing
and
sensitively
told
documentary
of
a
life
wasted.