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Rating:
Defining this film "the phenomenon of the year" is certainly reductive, for a simple reason: if we look back over the years, there is nothing similar... we would have to mentally go back to 1997 when the cinematic crowd was abuzz over the release of "Titanic," yet the example still doesn't do it justice, because a film "event" shouldn't just provide entertainment, it should create a true tsunami in the world of cinema and information, it should cause panic, it should expand its magic, go beyond the barriers of the screen and influence the reality around us.
The filmed evidence of Michael Jackson's last days makes Obama and the pope seem like Z-list stars. Kenny Ortega's docu-film has enough elements to enchant the planet and become a topic of study. 111 minutes of film between spectacle (what we see) and controversy (which we obviously don’t see): musical art at its highest levels - mystery - dossiers - speculation - hypocrisy - cultural phenomenon - marketing genius - fiction - reality - gossip, and so on. In the theater, there were metalheads, rockers, even Vasco Rossi fans! (Good God!!!!) all curious to see a monstrous show machine in action... unfortunately, they all discovered, too late, a genius, artistically resurrected by his own death (this is the world, that's how it goes). People who until May repudiated him due to gossip business and now after his death discover that “damn... the newspapers were lying, this is a genius! My goodness, how good he was! Poor thing, until now they've destroyed him... and speculated on him by inventing stories... I want all his records!” getting brainwashed by TGCOM and Novella 2000 only to wake up and say that the media lie, is nothing short of shameful; but is the human brain an optional organ? How can you judge an ARTIST based on a PRIVATE life distorted by the MEDIA? Italians, people of Blasco and Big Brother, are always at the top (nation with the fewest viewers on the first day of programming), spaghetti eaters and mandolin players who realize at the last moment of a man whose life was only art and musical devotion, they all had to wait for the news edition to say "he was a genius," so everyone in front of the TV repeating "he was a genius," a world of sheep!
And now... everyone curious to see the MONSTER (this time referring to skill and not the face)
Luckily there are those who already knew for 40 years what kind of biblical proportions genius Mr. Jackson was made of, and this controversial film demonstrates it fully. The "This Is It" tour was announced as the greatest live show of all time, and to show that it's not the usual free label, go see this film! What Jackson was preparing for his fans and not only was something unimaginable! 3D short films projected in the background, multiplied dancers on green screens, giant spiders walking on stage, luminous spheres from which people emerge, dancers shooting out of the stage like toasts, burning clothes, flying skeletons, action movie explosions, scenes from '40s movies with actors interacting with the show and MJ (just like Forrest Gump interacted with historical footage of US presidents), goosebump-inducing dancers and musical groups! (the best instrumentalists in the square) Michael Jackson would have returned grand (and that cocaine monkey Robbie Williams claiming to be the new king of pop would have declared himself lost in the Maldives. And Madonna would have taken a nice hit in the scenic field) everything was big, everything was too big and maybe too uncomfortable...
They took years to destroy him, they had succeeded, and perhaps someone didn't want him to return to number one (as "Dangerous" producer Teddy Riley recently declared)... the hypothesis of murder by colleagues is almost certain. As the most absurd, but not so absurd hypothesis: the fake death! A legend that accompanies all the great myths, from Elvis to Jim Morrison... everyone could be alive, but in the case of the King Of Pop it goes well beyond the urban legend: false death certificates, empty coffins, fiction funerals, 150 inconsistencies on the day of death, unnamed doctors, the only one with a name goes to Disneyland with the kids instead of jail (accused of murder), disturbing videos online (the one of the ambulance, however, has been declared fake), statements on death and texts published before he died!!! ... do we live in a world of coincidences or is the story worrying? Whether he was murdered or simulated a death with such high revenues as to involve authorities and politicians, one thing could be said: "This Is It" might not be a random film! As a filmmaker, I've noticed that some shots and especially the editing aren't simple image collages showing us Michael rehearsing, but are edited artistically as if specifically shot for a film, scenes in high definition with stage costumes, auditioning dancers in "friends" style by De Filippi, it is a show edited masterfully.
The film, as it has been edited, can raise suspicions about his actual health condition... they seem to want to show us a Michael in dazzling shape to wash their hands and say, “it's not true he was sick and we ignored it just to make money, you see? He was doing great.” I could film an old woman limping across the street and make it spectacular with dynamic and sophisticated video editing, today with recording and editing tricks you can do anything. What we see on the screen is still a nimble, agile, and mentally brilliant Michael Jackson! (if the first two things can be editing filters, the third is undoubtedly real... mentally he is brilliant!). Maybe, and I say MAYBE, they were the few moments when he physically recovered and gave his best, given that hallway GOSSIP (and not) says that at some times he couldn't even eat and had to be fed, but it's hard to believe these things after seeing him dance and sing that way at the age of 50. The mystery is there anyway! And the director also has fun planting (fake?) clues about his supposed fake death, the icing on the cake is in fact hidden after the end credits, where Michael would reveal a coded message on this supposed theory. Everything meticulously planned to attract people from all over the world (Wednesday, October 28, in ONE single day $20 million revenue!!) transforming Sony Music into one of the largest criminal organizations on the planet! (remember the scrap of a demo piece from the '80s that they sold us as a new piece, titled like the film. A crime!).
What then remains truly genuine of this film? Obviously, what is inside the creator's mind, Michael Jackson is an art genius. The real novelty of this film is indeed showing his creative side, beyond the speculative operation or (alleged) cover-up (precisely to not show him sick), Jackson demonstrates that he was born on stage and that no one can compete with him: visionary, creative, intuitive, futuristic, MJ is everything and more! He gives instructions to the people involved, stops an entire performance because according to him a note was wrong, gently scolds the musicians and dancers, manages to keep complete control over the entire creative process: he is a choreographer, musician, sound technician, supervisor of special effects, as well as the usual singer and dancer of inestimable talent (his nimble, fluid movements, heirs of the lessons of James Brown and Jackie Wilson, his body suffers, but his feet remain magical, his feet move with the magic of the past, and it's something that none of these modern era acrobatic dancer brats will ever know how to match). All this is Michael Jackson, and the film is a unique opportunity to see a genius at work during his creative process. From this point of view, the work is very successful, there is even talk of an Oscar nomination (although in my opinion it is exaggerated and misplaced, it is still a musical documentary).
The flaws of this operation lie in a mysterious and unsettling behind-the-scenes (which they will never show us, since they might show us a different Michael from how we see him in the film) and a speculative operation hardly less than shameful; but beyond the TRILLIONS Sony will earn, it's the only way to see the last days of a titan of music and show business, who alive or dead... we will never see again.
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