Traces the meteoric rise to fame of the Haitian-Puerto Rican artist whose success was unprecedented for an artist of colour in the U.S. Geoff Dunlop avoids the tawdry gossip and spectacle that have been the focus of other documentaries about the artist, and instead we see Basquiat speaking for himself in interviews and home movies, with former teachers and close friends sharing their accounts of Basquiat's life.
As he gradually turns mad, the dancer Nijinsky evokes the important episodes of his life. In costumes and sets of lush beauty, the divine puppet performs in a final show where the secondary characters are named: Diaghilev, Isadora Duncan, Stravinsky, Auguste Rodin, Léon Bakst.
The boisterous good humor of Jurmala, the nickel-mine owner, is, if anything, only barely dented by the raging battles in Finland before, during and after World War Two.
Andreas, who is ten, has been brought up by his grandmother. When she dies, he removes a putto from the crucifix placed upon her, puts it in his mouth and does not speak again.
