Very bad it has to be a documentary about an artist that does not contain at least one scene that serves as a summary at all.
The problem comes when, after watching the film, it is impossible to choose the moment that best defines the artist or, at least, the piece that has been built on that artist.
That's exactly what happens after you finish watching the 150 minutes of
The World's a Little Blurry
, the Billie Eilish film directed by RJ Cutler
(The September Issue, Nashville).
for Apple TV +.
The profusion of defining scenes of the character's character, his evolution, his thinking and his dreams and nightmares is overwhelming.
Billie in the room composing music with her brother Finneas.
Billie in the garden at home using her mother as a stuntman - in the background, her father recycling garbage - to rehearse the ideas she has for the video for her song
When the Party's Over.
Billie on the set of the video for
When the Party's Over
whispering to the camera, after listening to the director's instructions, that the next videos will be directed by herself.
Billie talking about loneliness in a dressing room in Paris.
The level of intimacy and reality is so great that even when the American appears answering questions from the press in Barcelona, it seems that she is confessing something almost clandestine.
Normally, in documentaries about musicians, the material that is had of them, or rather, the one that they and their team of 30 advisers, 15 publicists, eight managers and a dozen family and friends with the right to veto has allowed to be included in the final footage, it is sparse and almost always superficial.
Then, the musical numbers are used as a trap so that the viewer will forget that they came to see a new story and they are playing a succession of old songs.
The opposite is true here.
One is grateful that there are musical interludes because they give space to think and savor what has been seen before and also to prepare for what may come after.
The manual says that 90 minutes of a music documentary is justified by a scene to comment on.
Billie Eilish and RJ Cutler laugh out loud at what the manual says.
The World's a Little Blurry
is a joy for the spectator, even for the most neutral.
She is also a scoundrel to the other pop stars.
At least, for those who still believe that closeness can be faked.
With the advent of social media, the advertisers of these great stars saw the sky open.
Suddenly, they had a cheap and effective way to communicate with their fans by dominating the speech.
They no longer had to use the press, at the risk of finding an independent journalist from time to time, to transmit it, but they could manage it from their Twitter account.
This created the false idea that the middle man was being killed, a wet dream of late capitalism, since it was the same star, with his iPhone and his little fingers, who told all his truth directly to the public.
That masquerade worked for a while.
Thanks to her, people like Beyoncé made the public believe that she knew what she was like and what she was thinking without wasting a minute of her life in letting that public know anything about her.
This documentary reveals all those strategies.
There seems to be no strategy here.
In fact, sometimes the rhythm is lost due to excess content.
Let go of my arm, Billie.
Obviously, there are moments choreographed to the greater glory of this winner of five Grammys, such as when it is her turn to say hello and take pictures with a host of important gentlemen who do not know anything and can only explain her displeasure, for just in the next scene Appear in a New York store hugging her fans, charming, excited.
Your music has saved my life, Billie.
But above all, there is a teenager from Los Angeles showing us the notebook in which she composes her first songs and pointing out that some are drawings, while her finger rests on what is the recreation of a penis.
Or a Billie, already on the back of world success, scolding her mother because she does not want to be forced to do things she does not want anymore.
Being a girl, anyway.
But it would be a very paternalistic mistake to believe that this documentary is about the life of an adolescent and thereby allow us to make value judgments about her and her generation, which is what it takes a lot now: adults convinced that they know what young people are up to because they are amused by Rosalía's songs or they know who Ibai Llanos is.
This documentary is about how the entire music industry has teased us with the acquiescence of the artists.
It is neither hagiography nor revenge.
And there is its great merit.
We are spectators, not clients.