Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami
Kino Lorber | Release Date: April 13, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
CineVueTom DugginsMar 26, 2018
Fiennes doesn’t do anything radical in her handling of the footage or the approach, but with a subject like Grace Jones a simple approach is still spellbinding. Read full review
90
The New York TimesWesley MorrisApr 12, 2018
The relief of Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami is that it seeks to square the person with the provocateuse. The documentary is a feat of portraiture and a restoration of humanity. It’s got the uncanny, the sublime, and, in many spots, a combination of both. Read full review
90
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganMar 26, 2018
Jones is a marvel, really, all the more so now that time has refined and enhanced her unflagging lust for life. Fiennes delivers a documentary which captures that spirit in a way that’s cinematic and rousing. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovApr 25, 2018
Feels feverishly dreamlike while keeping its subject firmly rooted in the present. If you desire a female empowering musical manifesto with both claws and kisses, here it is. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshApr 19, 2018
Ultimately, "Bloodlight and Bami" is a rich, delicate tapestry of a life, where each thread is lovingly woven together to create a full picture. Read full review
80
TheWrapDave WhiteApr 12, 2018
It’s a life — and now a film about a life — built from disparate strands of experience, but one that makes sense exactly because she is Grace Jones, and being Grace Jones means synthesizing Grace Jones from all available material. Read full review
80
Village VoiceApril WolfeApr 12, 2018
This is an intimate portrait of the artist in recent years as she returns to Jamaica, the country of her birth and childhood, for a family reunion. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 26, 2018
It’s a celebration of her musicality and extraterrestrial scariness, and a reminder that films about female singing stars need not be gallant tributes to tragically doomed fragility. Read full review
80
Time OutDave CalhounMar 26, 2018
Bloodlight and Bami defiantly reflects the experimental whirlwind of Jones’s existence: her ability to look and feel relevant decades since she started out. Read full review
75
Boston GlobePeter KeoughApr 18, 2018
Perhaps Fiennes’s intent is to draw the viewer into the solipsistic intensity of what it is to be Grace Jones. It is a bracing experience, because she is hedonistic, exultant, funny, and fierce. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreApr 11, 2018
Bloodlight and Bami may be mostly for her most faithful fans, but it makes for an interesting, just-revealing-enough portrait for those who only know her from the image she’s created and the music that rarely made it out of the clubs, back in the day. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineKeith UhlichApr 6, 2018
The effect of Sophie Fiennes's unmoored approach to her subject is to take us out of normal time and put us on Grace Jones time. Read full review
63
Philadelphia Daily NewsDan DeLucaMay 2, 2018
The movie clocks in at just under two hours and feels considerably longer. As it ticks on, it achieves an unlikely and perhaps not entirely unintentional feat: It makes Grace Jones kind of boring. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaApr 13, 2018
During the many scenes back home in Jamaica, blessed with the lively Jones clan as subjects, the director doesn’t have any idea what to do with her camera. Read full review
60
EmpireLiz BeardsworthMar 26, 2018
An engaging, visually striking attempt to uncover the ‘real’ Grace Jones which is only partially successful in those terms. Nonetheless, it’s still a fitting tribute to a music icon. Read full review
60
Total FilmKevin HarleyMar 26, 2018
Despite the candid vérité stylings, art-dance powerhouse Grace Jones remains a magnetic enigma in Sophie Fiennes’ docu-study. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonMar 26, 2018
British director Sophie Fiennes certainly finds Jones a spellbinding subject in Bloodlight and Bami, securing intimate access to the veteran diva over several years without ever quite managing to spill her secrets. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonApr 25, 2018
A film with no context, it is a sporadically interesting, overlong look at the legend as she nears 70, still performing before her legions of fans. Read full review
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