I didn’t want to be a pop star, I just wanted to scream, says at one point the protagonist of this biographical documentary, whose wish came true very quickly. Irish musician Sinead O’Connor was indeed a huge pop star in the early nineties, her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” was the biggest hit of 1990, and in her early and mid-twenties it seemed like the sky was the limit. However, very soon O’Connor practically disappeared from the scene and from the spotlight, although in fact she did not disappear, since all this time she continued to record albums and perform, and after she published the book of memoirs “Rememberings” in 2021, it was her turn to to a biographical film about her.
The story through which O’Connor herself leads us as the narrator focuses mostly on the period from 1987, when she appeared on the scene, until 1993, when she ended up in a self-imposed pop-mainstream exile, let’s call it that. Although I can’t say that I’ve ever listened to O’Connor or know her music, it’s fascinating how this woman stood out from all of today’s pop stars and stars whose names I don’t even know and who could easily be mistaken for actresses. in porn movies. One simply has to respect a woman like Sinead O’Connor because she was the ultimate rebel, a brave uncompromising non-conformist who refused to be a product and mold herself into what the music industry asked of her. Instead of growing her long hair, she cut herself bald, and instead of heels and mink shoes, she had an almost androgynous style of her own.
Fame and fortune, she claims, were never overly interesting to her, and singing and songwriting were initially a form of therapy due to her difficult childhood and growing up in Ireland, which included some time spent in the infamous Catholic Magdalene hideouts. We see here how growing up in an ultra-conservative country at the time affected her, as well as the traumatic relationship with her mother and father. And such a frail and fragile girl became a star overnight, and with that star status came something that O’Connor did not want to agree to. She decided to use her influence and status to warn about some problems in society, about injustices, she did not agree to compromises, and in her performances she often crossed the line.
All this led to her controversial appearance on Satudray Night Live where she scratched a photo of Pope John Paul II on live broadcast, which, among other things, led to the end of her status. Although this move out of context may seem like the act of a complete lunatic, we understand how much she was disappointed and disgusted with the Catholic Church because of the abominations done for decades in her country to weak, simple and God-fearing people who were actually betrayed by that same church, without them even being aware of it. . Her resentment of an organization that sells itself as a monopolist on honesty, morality and ethics is completely understandable, but in reality it does everything the opposite of what it preaches and everything it believed in is actually a lie.
A brutal media chase followed, and to this day O’Connor is somewhere on the sidelines, far from the headlines and big stages. The film shot by Kathyrn Ferguson had its premiere at Sundance, won numerous awards, and it is one of the stories about people who were somehow ahead of their time. And not only in terms of music, but also in terms of thinking and attitudes, because very likely today O’Connor would not have such problems due to her behavior as she did thirty years earlier. But let’s go back to the beginning, a singer like her would probably not get a chance today when we see all the junk, kitsch and bad taste that goes by.