A documentary on the life, music, and legacy of Bob Marley.
Every second is earned in Macdonald’s long, generous and rigorously detailed Bob doc. You might wish for more live material but what’s here is stirring, probing and moving.
Macdonald makes his documentary sing.
Bob Marley emerges as an almost Napoleonic figure in Kevin Macdonald's passionate but partisan documentary.
Remarkable man, fitting documentary.
In the end, it’s just good, comprehensive storytelling, a film that justifies the legend rather than hypes it.
A masterful doc to rival Macdonald's Touching The Void.
A fascinating and occasionally moving insight that humanises a legend.
The scale of his charisma is shocking.
The problem with Marley is the reverential distance it keeps. It's not quite a hagiography, but it's close.
A fascinating account of a complex, charismatic man.
It’s all delivered with such rich, campfire-crackly conviction that the stories feel thrillingly intimate...Bringing everything together, of course, is the music, which even to this reggae sceptic sounded glorious.
A great music documentary.
Impressive, thoughtful.
Comprehensive, absorbing and inspirational.
Although the archive material is fascinating and the range of interviewees impressive, the sheer weight of it feels laboured and slightly hagiographic, as though absolutely everyone had to have their say.
What’s refreshing is that Macdonald’s film is so many things. It’s a window into the soul of Rastafari Reggae, an honest and affectionate biopic, a tale of tragedy caught up in revolution. But perhaps more importantly, it’s a fiery, bracing portrait of a cultural consciousness and the philosophy which directed it.
At times you wish Macdonald had pushed his interviewees a little bit further in their recollections; by including a superfluous coda involving a montage of children from around the world singing along to 'One Love', Macdonald is at times guilty of softening Marley's legacy.
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General release. Check local listings for show times.
Cameo, Edinburgh from Friday May 11, 2012, until Thursday May 24, 2012. More info: http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/
Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Monday July 9, 2012, until Thursday July 12, 2012. More info: www.filmhousecinema.com