White Diamond: A Personal Portrait of Kylie Minogue (2007)

Simply A Masterpiece

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Kylie is a lot unknown... for her fans, for those ones that only know her music superficially or even for those ones that not even know who she is.She's a figure on stage for over 20 years, but dislike some other pop stars, she has a glamorous simplicity that dignifies her pop princess title. She's a tender figure in pop music that acts in a comfort way that makes us feel a close part of her life, and that's why she has followers and get new ones each new moment for so many years. But we could never be able to deeply know who Kylie Minogue is.She's a public figure that can maintain a good distance of her private life from the media and also from her fans to a point that we could never know if she is really happy as she demonstrates on every picture that she takes, on every show that she performs, on ever TV appearance that she makes. She is an icon, in all its meaning... and an icon - in all its meaning - is something that exists with no life except the one that we all create in our particular minds.After breast cancer Kylie's private life has never been so bared and she never had been so exposed. We all got thru that with her and felt a Kylie Minogue-drama that we had never felt before, and that's why all the world stopped to follow her progress, because, for the first time, we could finally see that Kylie is human and not a icon.White Diamond is all about all said above. It's a deeply cut in what has been untouchable for so many years. Truly is nothing that we haven't seen before in a personal documentary. She's happy, she's sad, she's bored, she's tired, she's funny, she's friendly, she's lonely... of course is a "she is" movie like any other personal portraits, but what make this one so special is her friendly relationship with everyone that surrounds her with no distinctions and the way she personally handles her problems and how she deals everything with sanity even at short moments of necessary insanity. Also, William Baker, the director and personal friend, knew how to be subtle and uncommitted, making everything runs spontaneously natural and true.We have the possibilities to see, for the first time, how a so public figure can be so unknown and how fragile and small she becomes behind the stage and behind a make up that covers her feelings like a mask. A respectful movie that explores a backstage once unexplored, and a movie that makes us proud to be connected in a cosmic way to one of the most interesting artists of her time.

Hell of a film. It made me smile a lot. But there were parts that I was far from smiling. This woman has been through the hell of cancer and come out triumphant. And I wish her all the luck in the world. I saw "White Diamond" at a special screening the night it was first premiered in London on Leicester Square. It touched me, watching footage of Kylie cutting short her Manchester show, apologizing and looking, if not very unwell, profusely sorry to her crowd. And the footage of Danni and Kylie together live on stage can't be described better than Danni does it herself. Watch the film, you'll understand. All in all, an amazing insight into a very private life. Keep going Kylie, we really do love you. x