A review of the 2024 Amy Winehouse film “Back to Black” from a Biodynamic psychotherapeutic perspective “We only said goodbye with words, I died a hundred times…” As a human being, I have been in the situation of feeling “He’s killed me…”. Amy Winehouse, played beautifully by Marisa Abela, speaks these words from her heart, feeling utterly abandoned by Blake, in the 2024 biographical film of her life, "Back to Black". Perhaps I’ve been in the other place too, of abandoning someone and leaving them feeling like I have killed them. Strong words… and yet, these things happen... people react, close their hearts and leave, and the people they leave also react, and feel destroyed. Amy speaks straight into these places of raw feeling and deep, unconscious reaction, with her heart fully engaged in her music. Through her music and life, we feel all the tragedy and waste, “me and my head high and my tears dry… get on without my guy… you went back to what you knew... I’ll go back to black…”, especially as her life spirals into addiction and early death. We watch as Amy tumbles headlong into the turmoil of her dreams for love, marriage, family and relationship with “her Blakey”, ultimately un-achievable and insurmountable. Bless Amy’s love for Blake, it’s a sacred love, and the pain she feels is universal. And all the time, there is something earlier that is underlying, seemingly buried by both the film and by Amy herself: the nagging reality, less romantic, of difficult relationships with close caregivers. Amy’s loss of her Nan, the intimate relationship with her Nan, cuts into her reality and Amy doesn’t seem to survive this. She disintegrates into her coping strategies, previously successful: sublimation into her music and displacement into her love for her Blakey. Amy’s Nan gently telling her, “oh, I’m sorry. You liked him, didn’t you?” And Amy, simply being heard, “Yes Nan, I quite liked him a very lot.”
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I sense the first signs of Spring emerging in our Wintery environment and I hope you can too! Our annual Spring Meeting will be held on Saturday 18th May 2024 at the Clayton Hotel, 27-29 Station Road, Cambridge CB1 2FB. The committee meeting, open to all ABMT members, will run, as usual, from 11.00 am to 1pm, and the Afternoon Session from 2 to 4pm. The whole of the day's events will be available on-line so if you would like to participate in this way, please let me know. The Afternoon Session will be open to non-members. Members are free, £20 for non-members. Our Speaker for the Afternoon Session this year will be Professor Helen Payne. Here is some preliminary information that Helen as sent us about the workshop: This workshop will provide a brief background to The BodyMind Approach for supporting people experiencing medically unexplained symptoms (with labels such as IBS, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia etc.) for which all tests and scans come back normal. There will be open discussion and opportunities to engage in some experiential learning practices. |
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April 2024
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