âAmyâ documentary film review
By Jerrison Oracion, Senior Columnist
In the highly anticipated documentary Amy, director Asif Kapadia takes an in-depth look at the girl behind the beehive hairdo through archived footage of the singerâs performances, interviews, and home videos. I knew of Amy Winehouse in her recent years, but after seeing this film I got to learn about her early years.
There were four people that were important in her life: her husband Blake Fielder, her father Mitchell Winehouse, Mos Def (who goes by Yasiin Bey in the film), and her bodyguard, Andrew Morris.
Amy was very close to Blake, who she met when she moved to Camden. One of her friends describes the relationship as being what changed everything.
âWe were in love, and thatâs like a real drug, isnât it?â Amy says in the documentary, explaining that the relationship took a toll on her but she couldnât get away from it.
Blake introduced her to the hardcore drugs that led to her downfall. She also turned to drinking, particularly vodka, to deal with depression.
This ultimately led to her death by alcohol toxicity on July 23, 2011, at the age of 27.
Another factor in her death was that she struggled with bulimia and staying thin. In the documentary, she describes a diet in which you can eat anything you want as long as you âthrow it outâ later.
Amy describes herself as a jazz singer in the documentary. In an interview, she says that while she was making Back to Black, she would only listen to songs that were made in the 1960s.
The last song she did was a duet with one of her favourite jazz singers, Tony Bennett, called âBody And Soulâ for his album Duets II.
Amy comes to an abrupt end very quickly. It would have been better if it ended with the subjects reflecting on Amyâs life and her music.
