Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe
(UK, 107 min.)
Dir. Cosima Spender
Programme: Galas (World premiere)
Is it time to say goodbye to music docs that feature stars as executive producers? That question ironically lingers in the serviceable but lacking Andrea Bocelli documentary Because I Believe. Crediting both the famed Italian opera singer and his wife Veronica in e.p. roles, this by the book bio is a handsomely made affair by director Cosima Spender. However, depth or higher meaning aren’t on the agenda here. This film, like so many other music docs in a seemingly endless stream of formulaic but perfectly watchable lightweight works, is all about access and music.
The film frames the story around Bocelli’s preparations for a performance at the Baths of Caracalla. The picturesque venue boats best significance for the singer, as it famously housed a 1990 concert with the Three Tenors–Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, and José Carreras–that was aired for a television audience of 800 million viewers. As Bocelli rehearses, he provides the story behind his blindness, for which his musical success is doubly famous. Biographical notes tell of childhood, a boarding school, and a soccer ball to the face that robbed him of the remaining shreds of his vision.
His early years also tell of a struggle to fit in with his family and a desire to overcome ableism. Music, as Bocelli tells, obviously was an outlet with which he could challenge himself. Bocelli reflects how early gigs playing in piano bars prepared him for his eventual crossover success in opera and pop music, something of a true rarity song recording artists.
After landing a gig with the Italian rockband Zucchero on Pavarotti’s suggestion, wowing crowds with his vocal range, and then fusing pop branding with operatic highs, the film charts his success. But it’s really a boxing match that does it.
Perhaps the only really novelty to the film is the relatively available trivia that Bocelli was invited to perform his hit “Con te partirò” in a boxing match for German athlete Henry Maske’s last hurrah. Fortuitously for Bocelli, less so for Maske, the film relates how the boxer lost and ended his career with English version of “Con te partirò” sung as a duet with Sarah Brightman as images of a crying boxer transmitted worldwide. As “Time to Say Goodbye” plays unironically to images of the boxer overcome with emotion, it’s humorously easy to see how, through the strangest of circumstances, Bocelli shot to an even higher level of fame through a memeable moment that arrived long before viral videos did.
After that, it’s a hop, skip, a divorce, and a new marriage later. There’s lots of good material in Because I Believe, but no real conflict, problem, or reason behind it aside from a respectful and well-assembled addition to the music doc library. Everyone else has a doc, so why not Andrea Bocelli?
The film doen’t get into the weeds with Bocelli’s first marriage, but his two adult sons appear briefly during a scene in which the star collaborates with Ed Sheeran. If there’s an unspoken, uncritical sense that Bocelli failed his first family, Spender observes his efforts to do right by his young daughter Virginia. She can really belt a tune, too, and joins her dad on stage in concert to perform Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” The film overall might not invite such a proclamation, but it should make for an easygoing companion with a glass of red wine and a side of pasta, albeit with a serving that leaves one hungry.
