Amy - Dir. Asif Kapadia
Yes it's good, but only to a point. Asif Kapadia's overlong documentary is ultimately hindered by its challenging structure and the production's relationship with Amy Winehouse's family. The use of interviews heard over home movie and footage and photos from public appearances gives the journey through Amy's early life an impeccable and raw authenticity but there are times, particularly towards the end, when I wanted to see the faces of those talking. We don't just express emotion through the intonations of speech and Kapadia denies us from the facial expression of those involved. A lot of the film is composed of paparazzi photographs and video used in magazines and news programmes that the film partially criticizes for the continued hounding of Amy Winehouse. It just about gets away with this for a while, but the use of footage from Amy's private funeral felt a little hypocritical and frankly uncomfortable. Kapadia and co. initially ha...