She wears a skull mask made of gold on stage. Or a disco ball as a hat. She showed all the imitators where fashion stops and style begins during her 2008 comeback. Grace Jones, the progenitor of Afro-Punk, is a hurricane. She has been back ever since her eponymous album with her costumes, her cool contraalto, her unpredictability, her incredible 69 year old body. She wrote her memoir with the title “I will never write my memoirs“ and now a documentary about her is in cinemas. You can justifiably expect the unexpected since director Sophie Fiennes moves on the same frequency as her subject. No archival material, no voice over, no biographical overview. Songs played in full length. A closeness to the protagonist that goes back to a close friendship. And when the camera strikes it‘s own path, it stays there. The two shot together for 10 years, the camera is no longer felt. Grace Jones, dressed in Miyake on stage, naked on film. Tribal make up on TV appearances, no make-up with her family in Jamaica. Her music is very produced in the albums, in rehearsal a rattle is enough. Luxury hotels in Paris, village shacks with her Caribbean family. She has set the standard for creating a stage persona and keeping it alive, the “icon“ with the almost alien presence is also naked, without make-up, unaccompanied at home: Grace Jones, the biggest living pop star. A fat French TV producer has an angry fit when he wants to surround Grace Jones with scantily dressed danger: I‘m not a pimp. You have to be a high flyin‘ bitch sometimes.

Jan Künemund

Translation: Elinor Lewy