Beyoncé continues to push the boundaries of what a concert film is in her second feature-length performance film, “Renaissance.” The almost three-hour-long film topped the box office on its Friday, Dec. 1 release with a $21 million debut. “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé” mixes live performance footage with behind-the-scenes documentation from the Renaissance World Tour, which spanned six months, nine countries and 56 shows. The film’s setlist consists of 34 songs, including all 16 songs off the “RENAISSANCE” album and her biggest career hits.
“Renaissance” utilizes footage from almost every stop on the tour. Seamlessly meshing performances from different nights into one song, the film shines a spotlight on Beyoncé, her background dancers, her camera technicians and her editors’ unbelievable synchronization. An aerial shot catches Beyoncé and her entourage of dancers doing a high kick, and once their feet land back on the ground, they are in completely different outfits in a completely different city. Another scene transitions between “Formation” and “Diva,” using a conversation between Beyoncé and her team about cutting “Diva,” which Blue Ivy Carter pushes against this and tells her mom she cannot cut that song. “Baby, don’t interrupt me-” Beyoncé tells her before the scene cuts mid-sentence to the stage as “Diva” starts.
What puts “Renaissance” a step above most concert films is its ability to humanize a concert. The film’s behind-the-scenes look shines a light on Beyoncé’s stage crew team and her life as a mother of three young children. When the first act of the performance ends, and the platform the singer is standing on begins to descend, concert-goers are shown visuals for “RENAISSANCE.” The film, on the other hand, follows Beyoncé on her way down and shows a time-lapse of the stage being built. The next fifteen minutes of the film include a voiceover from Beyoncé as she explains how the process of creating a show of this caliber has always fascinated her more than the actual performance and shows the invigorating work of her 300-and-counting tour team. “Every bee has a job in this hive,” Beyoncé says before listing the jobs of all the individuals who make the Renaissance machine work-truck drivers, nurses, photographers, audio-visual crew, designers, stage builders and so many more. Beyoncé’s unrequited support and love for her team (going as far as to buy them all matching reflective crew jumpsuits) is so powerful and makes those who are often never seen on camera the stars of the process.
The film does not shy away from showing the ugly sides of creating an event this big-the sleepless nights, the physical pain, the technical difficulties, the mental tasking that comes with creating an event with this many moving parts. During the Glendale, Arizona show, Beyoncé’s audio cut out during “ALIEN SUPERSTAR.” Instead of using a clip from any of the other 55 shows that went smoothly, the film chooses to follow the stagehands who nervously repeat, “We’ve lost audio,” as the audio team vigorously works to fix this issue while Beyoncé and her personal stylist team use this opportunity to do a quick outfit change to surprise fans when the audio is intact. “Renaissance” shows the real trials and tribulations that come with a world tour and only enhances the experience to make it feel real, not some manufactured event run by robots who are incapable of creating or solving human errors.
“Renaissance means a new beginning,” Beyoncé defines during the film, and “RENAISSANCE” truly was for the singer as it implemented house elements into her diverse discography. The film spends a large portion talking about the power of house music and the importance of those who influenced the genre as a whole and in her personal life. Tina Knowles, Beyoncé’s mother, speaks about her nephew and best friend John Rittenhouse-known as Uncle Jonny to both Beyoncé and her sister Solange-who originally showed the family house music. Rittenhouse was an openly gay black man who grew up in Texas as a fashion designer in the 1950s and died of HIV-related complications in the late 1990s. Beyoncé and her mother discuss how touching it is to go out every night and see people dancing to the house music Jonny enjoyed and hear people yell back the line “Uncle Jonny made my dress/That cheap Spandex, she looks a mess” in “HEATED.”
Both “Renaissance” the film and album give flowers to extremely talented black and gay creatives who paved the way for house music as we know it today. Ballroom legend Kevin Jz Prodigy acted as the tour’s vivacious narrator. Ts Madison, Big Freedia, Honey Dijon and Grace Jones’ work is prominently featured on the album and tour, indoctrinating fans to the work of artists they may have never heard before. Each stop of the Renaissance World Tour included a ballroom segment, which featured ballroom dance group The Dolls-consisting of dancers and LGBTQIA+ people Honey Balenciaga, Carlos Irizarry, Darius Hickman and Jonté Moaning. “They [young queer people] can see me on this stage and think, ‘Oh, if they can pray for it, I can pray for it too,’” Balenciaga says in the film. To have an artist as influential and show-stopping as Beyoncé showcases the work of creatives who may have never reached these heights due to their skin color, gender or sexuality is so vital to preserving talent that might’ve faded into obscurity if not.
Beyoncé’s screentime is only rivaled by audience shots with the concert-goers being the supporting actors in this film. The awe, the excitement, the tears that these fans share in that crowd are forever documented in “Renaissance” and their unbridled joy radiates through the theater screen. The audience is filled with millions of people of different shapes, sizes, colors, ages-millions of different people all there to celebrate the same music. “Look at the people on the tour. There are so many different people from so many different backgrounds, walks of life, all shapes, sizes, colors, avenues, styles, looks, and they’re beautiful. They are wonderful and she [Beyoncé] brought that to life to show the people that she is aware of who her fans are. Beyoncé is very aware. She’s a businesswoman. She’s a mother, she’s a friend, she’s a sister, she’s an aunt. People need to understand that she works hard,” Kevin JZ Prodigy told GQ.
If you were one of the lucky people who did catch Beyoncé on the Renaissance World Tour, the film still offers a ton of surprises. From the voguish outfits to the freestyle dancing portions being different every night, there is something new every minute. Only nine shows on the world tour got fan favorites “THIQUE” and “ALL UP IN YOUR MIND” and the film graciously gives these amazing performances to all theater-goers. The movie also features special performances from Blue Ivy, Kendrick Lamar, Megan thee Stallion and Diana Ross.
Beyoncé is the greatest performer alive. Her ability to go from graceful to downright nasty in the blink of an eye is unrivaled and unique. “Renaissance” reveals the on and off-stage work the showgirl puts into her shows and even in her moments of weakness, Beyoncé still comes off like a superhero. Experiencing “Renaissance” in a theater is just as spectacular as experiencing it at a stadium.
Rating: 10/10
