no fucking body asked and no fucking body cares but I watched the docummentary and have some things that I need to vent out.
First of all let me tell you that I’m a fan of black pink, won’t call myself a blink ‘cause I’m not a super hard core fan but I do enjoy their music and I do like these girls very very much so. That been said...the docummentary was “just fine” at best, this is why I say so:
My favourite movie genre is docummentary, mostly ‘cause I’m a nerd, and have watched LOTS of docummentaries in my life. “Light Up The Sky” is not, in my eyes, a docummentary, is a one and half almost long ad for BP.
Maybe I’m mostly used to docummentaries being about darker topics such as politics, health, crimes, enviromentalism and things like that, but of course I’ve watched docummentaries about bands and musicians. My personal favourite is “Heart Like A Hand Granade” that’s about Green Day’s American Idiot - in case that wasn’t obvious- and after I watched it I felt like if I were a musician I’d like to be in a band like Green Day and have an album like American Idiot, I didn’t felt like that with Light Up The Sky.
Starting from the incredibly generic name, the docummentary was a great opportunity for YG to promote the girls as they deserve, I was actually shocked and so excited when I knew about this film coming to netflix, I thought it would be a great chance for new audiences to be exposed to BP and hopefully get curious about the girls and their music...I still hope this was the outcome for at least some people but after watching it I couldn’t help but to think it was a little bit...lackluster.
The docummentary tells a bit of their story and why they chose to be singers and their trainee days and how happy they are to perform in front of their fans and how cool coachella was and how they work with Teddy and that’s basically it. It’s extremely curated.
I expected that since is a docummentary and have footage from even their trainee days that they get to discuss things like how they worked on their music, how they felt to be promoted as the “new and prettier 2ne1″, how they felt about the pressure of being a girl group under one of the “big3″, how frustrated they felt with the lack of songs and the lack of opportunities to have creative input (the girls themselves talked about it more than once), how happy they are with their -finally!- full album and having writing credits, about their solos, about their side gigs as fashion embassors and judging on talent shows and acting...It was an opportunity to even talk about the controversies and hear their side of the story and how they feel about things! the backlash, being constanly put against 2ne1 and bangtan by the press, how pretty much anything and everything Jennie does is considered an scandal, Rosé and Lisa having detractors solely for being foreigners, and whatever else...but they didn’t, all of that was ignored. Don’t get me wrong I do NOT want them to talk about heavy topics if they’re uncomfortable with it but, as the genre of the film is a freaking docummentary, that’s the kinda things me as part of the audience expected to see. Not for the drama, but because it adds texture to the characters, makes them more human, more likeable, more relatable, makes you want to cheer for someone.
In some part Lisa says that at first she became close to Jennie ‘cause she also speaks english...I’d liked if she had said that she wasn’t allow to speak in english to other trainees and that when she arrived to Korea she didn’t speak korean and felt very sad ‘cause she couldn’t communicate with other people, a freaking 14 years old coming from a foreign country and that was living away from her family, give the child a freaking break!...Matters like this are just briefly mention throughout the docummentary and I wish the could’ve talked more about it. Other things that I remember now is poor Rosé saying that she feel at times like she has no social nor personal life and gets homesick, Jennie saying that maybe she at times looks tired or angry but she really isn’t, that’s just her face. And if I don’t mention my princess Jisoo in these thing is because -to absolutely no one’s surprise- she doens’t have that much screen time. Lisa also says that she wondered if she could be a good role model for the fans and that shit almost made me cry and I’m sorry that I bring Lisa back but she’s my bias so sue me.
My outtake from the film is that the girls are very hard working and really enjoy doing what they do and have more that a couple records and acalades...that’s it. If the goal was to make BP look non threatenning and soft, mission accomplished. If the goal was to gain more blinks and make the girls to appear more human and the gp to be more sympathetic towards them...not so sure about that.
I must say that I’M NOT A FILM CRITIC and I’m only posting this ‘cause it’s my blog and felt that the film didn’t do BP enough justice...but what do I know, you can disagree with me if you want.
