Bob Marley was a unique figure who had everything for a biopic: irresistible music, a messianic image and some very human weaknesses. He was the prophet of reggaethe exotic style that emerged in a poor Jamaica that jumped all the borders (and prejudices) of the planet. And he preached the Rastafarian creed, an amalgam of biblical and Africanist beliefs that took a controversial emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, as an incarnation of God (of Jah). Marley’s magnetic portrait, with his dreadlocks, his very defined features and his lost eyes, was printed on T-shirts like that of Che Guevara, except that the singer never fired a shot, but was shot. He became a revolutionary icon, an inspiration for what was called the Third World.
The movie Bob Marley: One Love, which was released in theaters in February and is now available on SkyShowtime, It is a missed opportunity. It approaches the character with fear, avoiding the less exemplary and without making us see the extraordinary thing about him. Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (author of The Williams method, about tennis sisters Venus and Serena), focuses on a short period in Marley’s life, between 1976 and 1978, in a context of terrible political violence in Jamaica. It is when he suffers an attack by a gang of gunmen and two days later goes on stage to show his wounds; when he goes into exile in London, where he records his best album, Exodus; when he returns to the island to lead a concert for peace in which the two rival (white) political leaders in his country shake hands. And that is when he is diagnosed with melanoma on his foot, which he refused to treat out of superstition (and which ended up killing him in 1981).
The actor Kingsley Ben-Adir He strives to imitate the voice, pose and gestures of the king of reggaebut it fails to convey its charisma. At least, unlike other biopic, They haven’t made him sing, which music-loving viewers will appreciate: the music that plays is the original music by Bob Marley and the Wailers with some arrangements, although an album of versions of his songs has been released in parallel with the soundtrack. (Music Inspired by the Film).
Although memories abound in the form of flashbackwe are left without understanding how Marley had become a global phenomenon coming from a background of poverty and marginalization; we are not explained the political and mystical charge that his work gives off; and his fondness for marijuana is briefly mentioned (the ganja) and his irrepressible infidelity to his wife, Rita Marley (he had four children with her and seven with six other women).
Some of these essential elements are mentioned in passing, in a reprimand given to him by Rita, played by Lashana LynchShe ends up being the story’s strong character: she introduces him to the Rastafarian faith, warns him that he is selling out to industry and capitalism (the Babylon of his lyrics), convinces him to return home, and only once reproaches him for sleeping with other women. The musician’s identity conflict is underlined: he was a mixed-race man, the son of a white British Army officer who abandoned his family as a child, which the film shows as his greatest trauma.
The protagonist’s story was much better portrayed in 2012 in the ambitious documentary Marley, Kevin Macdonald. It included valuable material, much of it previously unpublished, and the memories of Rita Marley, some of her children and everyone around her. Her rise to stardom is better understood and there is a more precise description of her religious and ideological positions, which are not always coherent. It is a narration authorized by the family (this also happens with the new film), but it is honest and exhaustive (it lasts 144 minutes). It was on several platforms and is now only available for rent.
And the same period on which it focuses One Love (of the shooting which could well have killed the couple at the pacifist festival) is well told in another documentary, Who Shot the Sheriff? (2018), from the series Remastered (on Netflix). This one does help to understand those turbulent years in Jamaica, when the exacerbated rivalry between the two parties that dominated local politics since independence was mixed with the power of armed gangs in lawless neighborhoods. Here the most likely leader of the attack is pointed out (Jim Brown, one of the local gang members connected to the conservative party; years later he went to visit his victim to apologize) and the influence of the CIA is pointed out, because Washington was afraid that the island would become the new Cuba.
One Love Now he intends to immortalize Marley through cinema, but he does so by oversimplifying a trajectory and a context that are much more complex than what is presented. This is supposed to bring his figure closer to new (and perhaps future) generations. In truth, he didn’t need to.
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