Tina is a documentary about the life and career of legendary icon Tina Turner. Told in five acts through archival footage, talking head interviews, live performances, some sparing recreations, and expansive audio the star's life is tracked through her present day recollections as well as audio from a 1981 People magazine interview.
The intimate, powerful, tragic, inspiring story is layed out here in stark and loving clarity. On paper the construction seems typical of the rock-doc formula but exquisite editing and insightful production take this film to another level. Turner's story is compelling enough but such care and attention has clearly gone in to the research, the live musical numbers play out in their entirety, the breadth of contributors is wide but Tina, rightfully, always has the last word either from her current vantage point or from the various interviews culled from the past forty years.
There's a rhythm and melody to the film, a syncopation, that pairs perfectly with it's subject. The yearning, the contrast of freedom and suffering, the undeniable contagious exuberance of Tina is perfectly conveyed. A comprehensive, exciting, absolutely magnetic portrait for Tina fans but also a compelling unarguable history of a rock legend for those who aren't. The abuse Tina endured and overcome has it's focus and that theme resonates today, you can't help but realize Tina is in some ways a godmother of the Me Too movement, but her story, her as a person is so much more and that too is clearly articulated within. Her spirit, her impact is what comes through, not her trauma.
A moving, fascinating investigation of one of the 20th centuries greatest entertainers.
Currently streaming on HBO Max.
Don't Miss It.
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