Premiering at Tribeca, Dana Flor's ode to the folk-rock singer focuses more on her current career predicaments than her popular appeal.
You know you’re wasting time on a documentary when you feel the urge to Wikipedia its subject while you’re in the middle of watching an entire feature film devoted to them. And once I had finished Dana Flor’s tedious music biodocthan I did going into it. At a mere 80 minutes, the film should at least come across as tight and succinct .
Now, Flor doesn’t pretend DiFranco is some music industry martyr the way Sinead O’Connor is framed in 2022’s: Modern-day DiFranco is the first to admit her regrets and mistakes as a wife, parent, musician and businesswoman. In fact, her candid reflections imbue the film with a distinctive dreariness as she recounts the naïve/idealistic business dealings of her younger years that have led her to feeling broke in her 50s.
My chief disappointment with the film stems from its incohesive biography. We’re treated to a few vague facts about the subject’s origins in Buffalo, New York, and her relationship with her apparently distant First Wave feminist mother. Yet it’s all told in such coded language and generalities that I was never sure what I was supposed to take away from the scant information we do receive about her upbringing and early career.
Much of the film is spent with a mature DiFranco just a little bit before and then during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she connects with a Bon Iver songwriting retreat/program to learn how to collaborate with others during the writing process. A fiercely independent artist, she admits that partnership during album development is a weakness she’s eager to master.
She’s mildly shocked when someone from that venture confesses their dynamic isn’t working for either of them, implying that perhaps she’s too comfortable in her individuality to effectively work in partnership to create an album after all. Eventually, though, she releases her 2021 studio recordto critical acclaim. I’m happy for DiFranco’s accomplishment while acknowledging that the visual document depicting it isn’t exactly one itself.
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