Nevaeh Modlin, Senior
**Spoilers Ahead** Before reading this review, I recommend you watch the doc first because in my opinion, it’s amazing and heartfelt.
Before even watching this film, I knew the hype around the documentary was going to be huge, and it undoubtedly lived up to the hype. The two hour film is a behind the scenes look into Beyonce’s memorable Coachella performance last year. Beyonce’s performance made her the first ever African American woman to headline Coachella. Her performance was so huge, the public started calling the festival “Beychella”. Knowles started the performance off with her famous song “Crazy In Love,” featuring her husband Jay-Z. The performance enlisted a live marching band and amazing dancers as well. With dance numbers and a mixture of mashups, I understand why this performance was one of the best. Seven minutes into the documentary, I felt like I watching the whole performance for the first time. Since Coachella is a two weekend festival, the film goes back and forth between both weekends. After singing her song “Freedom” she intertwines that with singing the black national anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing”. After singing the anthem, she goes into one of her hit songs “Formation”.
After a glimpse into the Coachella performance, you can hear an unidentifiable woman speaking. The woman speaks of black culture and explains why she shows off the culture. While she is speaking, there is video of the rehearsal for Coachella being played. As the film goes on, you see Beyonce’s point of view on going to college, where she says that life was her teacher. Knowles also mentions that her dream was to go to an HBCU (Historically Black College/University) as well. If you know anything about HBCUs, they take marching bands very seriously. This explains her choice to have the dancers and the live band with her. After the clips of rehearsal, the documentary picks up where it left off and shows clips of the Coachella performance. Once the footage of Coachella is done, it goes to more clips of behind the scenes, starting with clips of many HBCUs marching band performances. The schools featured consisted of Alabama State University, Hampton University, and many more. In the background of the clips, Knowles explains how she could have just come out on stage with her flower crown, but instead she decided it was more important to glorify black culture and the things that make it so amazing, Beyonce explains how growing up in Texas and seeing Battle of the Bands was a great feeling for her and she wanted that same aspect for her performance. Throughout the film, Knowles talks about her difficult pregnancy and how her mind while working was always on her family as well as doing her job. While making this documentary, Knowles also released a 40 song album to go with the documentary that has been number one on the top charts since it’s release. With the combination of the songs performed at Coachella and other famous songs, the album is a live experience of them all.
Overall, I love documentaries and Beyonce is one of my favorite artists, so the simple combination of the two made the experience even better. There were so many aspects of the film that I loved. One of the things I admired so much was the idea of the performance and the documentary being unapologetically black. Seeing how hard she worked made me admire not only Beyonce, but other women of color such as my mom and other women who are working 24/7 and providing a life for their family because it’s not easy. The cinematography of the whole documentary is really cool as well, it gives off this old-school film vibe. Just seeing the overall black excellence displayed on camera was awesome. Another admirable topic addressed was when the film spoke on the lack of love for black women. In the end, I definitely recommend watching this documentary to anyone with an interest in Beyonce’s life or black culture as a whole.
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