USA, 2005
Director: Jonas Åkerlund
Stars: Madonna, Guy Ritchie
Kabbalah is either the latest interesting fragment of Madonna’s storied life and career or it's her Yoko Ono, coming between Ms. Ciccone and her propensity toward cheeky genius.
Madonna's 2003 album "American Life" seemed to reflect a mid-life crisis, forcing airy pop melodies into a shotgun wedding with angry techno polemics, and its critical and commercial failure was laid squarely at the feet of her growing seriousness. Was Madonna going to become so humorless she'd lose her greatest creation, her self, and was it all Kabbalah's fault? For some, all worship and no play was making Madonna a very dull girl.
After the fall-out from "American Life", Madonna did something which had, when suggested to her by a fan at TRL just a year earlier, caused her to sneer: she embarked on a world tour that embraced her entire musical catalogue, not just her newer work. The Re-Invention Tour was like manna from heaven for Madonna's fans, and became the #1 concert of 2004. But when the indefatigable performance artist announced she was filming behind-the-scenes footage of the jaunt and reports surfaced that much would be made of her Kabbalistic studies, fans felt she may be losing ground again, retreating back into enlightened smugness, veering from the beat.
The result is the awkwardly titled I'm Going to Tell You a Secret which has suffered for this advance Kabbuzz, since very few Madonna fans and even fewer mainstream consumers have any interest in Madonna as preacher. The film was rejected by Cannes and snubbed by distributors. It should be no secret why there’s been no demand for a theatrical release of I'm Going to Tell You a Secret, despite the fact that Madonna’s other non-fiction film, 1991’s Truth or Dare (In Bed with Madonna in many markets) was a hilarious and mesmerizing blockbuster hit - one of the most financially successful documentaries of all time.
The Re-Invention Tour was a smash and smashingly entertaining, but it was not a pop cultural watershed moment like Blond Ambition, the tour captured in Truth or Dare. And so much has been made of Madonna’s 10 years studying Kabbalah that truly, nobody cares to learn much more about it. As for Madonna's own psyche, while it remains compelling to many, the promise of any secrets Madonna might have left to tell is not as tantalizing as the glimpse into her life of 15 years ago, pre “Sex” book, when little behind-the-scenes information was known about the woman who had become the most important female icon of the rock era. In short, I'm Going to Tell You a Secret, regardless of whatever its merits might be, was not going to put the asses into the seats.
I'm Going to Tell You a Secret finally aired in the U.S. on MTV and the new gay network Logo, and will be available on DVD worldwide in time for the holidays: Madonna is not one to give in to resistance.
So, with all of the preceding baggage checked, and viewed on its own terms, I'm Going to Tell You a Secret turns out to be not just a filmed religious tract or an extension of publicity for Madonna’s new album. Despite an exceedingly clumsy ending, which does venture into propaganda with an impassioned endorsement of the Kabbalah organization Spirituality for Kids and an earnest speech in Israel, the bulk of the film is a satisfying peek into what it's like to be Madonna right now.
Director Jonas ßkerlund, known as a music video director, competently sews together a narrative, culled from a reputed 350 hours of raw footage, but both he and Madonna, as producer, do miss the boat by brilliantly mimicking recognizable elements of Truth or Dare (a reliance on black-and-white photography, scenes with Madonna reading her charmingly goofy poetry, flickers of subplots involving her dancers' lives) but then failing to more carefully draw the parallels that might have made I'm Going to Tell You a Secret a true companion piece. By seeming to ignore the similarities and differences between the earlier film and this one, the director winds up with what at times feels like an uncredited filmic sample of Truth or Dare, whose director Alek Keshishian really would have been preferable as helmer of this job.
In Truth or Dare, the entire movie was black-and-white except for the concert footage. Here, the concert footage (mercilessly if artistically edited, perhaps with the knowledge that a full, typical concert DVD will follow in 2006) is in color, but so are some offstage moments-progress! Perhaps her 2020 documentary will be Technicolor throughout, or the concert scenes will be black-and-white and real life will be in vibrant color.
The film goes down easy with its speedy pacing and its tendency to linger on moments of levity. A series of bad jokes is laugh-out-loud funny, and there are some truly inspired moments that make it required viewing for Madonna fans, recommended viewing for pop culture nuts and suggested viewing for others.
One thing ßkerlund gets right he gets right on, which is his decision to include as much material on the one aspect of Madonna's life that still holds mystery-her relationships with her family, including her film director husband Guy Ritchie, their son Rocco, her daughter Lourdes by former flame Carlos Leon, and her father and stepmother. In every one of the scenes involving her family, something new is learned about Madonna as a daughter, mother, wife, woman or person. Her children have winning cameos and there is no suggestion of the Mommie Dearest child-rearing her detractors would like to believe exists. Her interplay with Ritchie is better romantic comedy than any fictional versions Madonna has filmed over the years. By far.
For gay fans, Truth or Dare showed Madonna's I'm-one-of-you devotion to gay men via her colorful interactions with her dancers. (Several later sued her for their inclusion in the film, including one who contended he'd been unwillingly outed.) Gay aspects of I'm Going to Tell You a Secret include Madonna's playful assertion that most priests are gay and a teasing exchange where she admits she thought the sexual preferences of two of her male dancers were the opposite of what they really are.
Though some viewers will always reject religious or political overtones coming from a popstar like Madonna, she comes off as genuinely wise and thoughtful, self-deprecating and warm and most of all sincere. Soundbites and misquotes in the press often make Madonna seem pretentious or hopelessly out of touch, but there is no evidence of that here, and with her guard relatively down, there would have been ample opportunity to slip a few embarrassing moments in. As a socially-aware entertainment icon with an opinion, Madonna proves she can out-Gandhi even Bono himself.
I'm Going to Tell You a Secret isn’t riotous fun, but as Madonna says with humble conviction this time around, “Fun is overrated”. Her new documentary does not quite measure up to Truth or Dare, nor could it. Truth or Dare was about not just a tour, a star and a woman, it was about an era. But the real secret of Madonna's latest documentary is that she now seems perfectly happy to leave all the grandiose stuff to her fans and critics to hash out. Instead, she's satisfied to focus on who she is at the moment. That snapshot, while slightly blurry, is still worth a good look.
