Tina Arena: Unravel Me ★★★★
One of the most surprising moments in Tina Arena: Unravel Me, an intimate and expansive 86-minute feature documentary delving into the Italian-Australian pop star’s life and 50-year career, is when Arena says, “I was now in my 20s and, yeah, I was ready to go.”
She’s talking about moving to France after The Mark of Zorro, a duet with Marc Anthony, became a massive hit there. But what’s surprising is hearing her age. We’re nearly an hour into the film. Arena’s story as an artist, from capturing the nation’s hearts as a seven-year-old on Young Talent Time to topping the charts with a blockbuster film’s theme song, already feels like a lifetime’s work. But Arena was only just discovering who she was as an artist.
Directed by Adrian Russell Wills and written and produced by Jessica Carrera (Seriously Red), Tina Arena: Unravel Me is beautifully made. Encyclopaedic in its scope, it features straight-to-camera narration from Arena in two guises – “icon” and “woman” – representing the dualities of her life and career. And as she talks, a cavalcade of detail from early home movies to archival TV footage, decades of music video clips, previous interviews and scenes from her current life and work help tell her story.
Arena is very honest. Describing the profound effect of singing aged six to the crowd at a family wedding, she recalls running off in tears overwhelmed by the enthusiastic cheers and clapping. But it was only a year or so later, she captured the nation’s hearts singing ABBA’s Ring Ring on Young Talent Time.
One of the first Italians on Australian TV, her years on the show were a dream come true. But being a household name brought weighty levels of attention. Leaving YTT in the 1980s and embarking on a singing career in a male-dominated music industry led to muted success and increased pressures about her image and artistic choices.
In the 1990s, the period with then-manager Ralph Carr (to whom she was married from 1995 to 1999) brought new energy. Arena’s breakout album, Don’t Ask, with its major hit Chains, brought several ARIA Awards. Hits such as Burn followed but, as her marriage broke down, she realised “no one was burning for me”.
Carr was recently sentenced to six years in jail for a rape and sexual assault that occurred in 2022, but this isn’t discussed in the film. Arena said at the film’s premiere she does not know the victim but was supportive of the verdict.
Being in France was life-changing for Arena. She met her former long-term partner, French artist Vincent Mancini, with whom she had a son, Gabriel. She released and performed successful French-English albums. Celine Dion is shown raving about her love for Arena on a French TV program. And in 2011 Arena became the first Australian to receive a Knighthood of the Order of National Merit, an honour bestowed on her by France’s then president, Nicolas Sarkozy.
It’s astonishing how much is packed into Tina Arena: Unravel Me. Interviews with family, important collaborators and music industry figures add to the film’s vast scope. Occasionally, its timeframe is confusing as archival footage and Arena’s narration bounces between decades. But this is an extraordinary portrait of an artist who strove tirelessly, and successfully, to be herself.
Arena is candid, funny, down-to-earth and often emotional as her journey unfolds. It’s a story told with grace and fire and wit.
Tina Arena: Unravel Me gets its free-to-air premiere at 7pm, October 18, on Seven and 7Plus.
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