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The Grace Jones documentary

— by Alyson Walsh

Grace Jones photo via The Pool

I’ve always admired Grace Jones. The strong image, the theatricality, the iconic Nightclubbing album that I still love to play. At 69, Jones is a woman with trend-defying, singular style who does her own thing regardless. Her fierce glamour hasn’t changed much since the Studio 54 days – and I appreciate this decade-defying look, and the confidence required to stick with it. On the return flight to London, I watched the documentary Bloodlight & Bami. It’s a behind-the-scenes film that follows the singer performing live, in the recording studio and travelling across Jamaica to visit family. Dressed only in a fur coat, Jones hilariously enjoys a champagne breakfast in a hotel in Paris, she is honest but surprisingly kind about the tacky backing dancers on a French TV show and watching her applying her own makeup before an appearance is captivating – but the film is most moving when she talks to Jamaican friends and family about her abusive stepfather Mas P.

Singer Grace Jones at the premiere of the film at the Toronto International Film Festival (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

The documentary-maker Sophie Fiennes spent almost 12 years filming Grace Jones. Writing in Vogue, Fiennes explains the title of the documentary. She liked the term ‘Bloodlight – a Jamaican musician’s term for the red recording light used in a studio’ but needed another word. Calling Jones late at night to discuss the issue, the musician immediately came up with Bami, ‘It’s the Jamaican bread I ate as a child, and it sounds funny, and that’s important, too.’ Grace Jones is a striking performer and this film shows her to be much warmer and funnier than you’d imagine.

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I’ve always admired Grace Jones. The strong image, the theatricality, the iconic Nightclubbing album that I still love to play.