Five Years of Lemonade: The Visual Album by Beyoncé
With every tear came redemption
And my torturer became my remedy
From the magnificence of great mountains to a small budding flower, to the way the shadows fall on a summer day, there are so many things in our created world that I take pleasure in wondering at. And this includes the artistry of film. I have always been captivated, as I think most people are, by story. And for me, the combination of good story-telling and beautiful imagery has been a way for me to enter into new worlds and thoughts.
One of the most compelling pieces of art in film that I have seen is Beyoncé’s visual album, Lemonade. Although I was always familiar with Beyoncé’s music, I would not have identified as being a part of the Bey-hive—a true Beyoncé fan. Not because I didn’t like her or enjoy her music, but simply because I wasn’t exposed to her or her music. But, having heard much buzz around her new album and the subsequent message behind it, I signed up for a free trial of Tidal and watched Lemonade one afternoon.
It was nothing like I had expected.
As the themes of Intuition, Denial, Anger, Apathy, Emptiness, Accountability, Reformation, Forgiveness, Resurrection, Hope, and Redemption scrolled across the screen, all of my senses were attuned to her story. Not only were there beautiful words, lyrics, themes, and music, but there were stunning visuals. We see the beauty of color and women—their curves and their hair. The tones of dark and light. Cleansing water and how time and processing make way for healing. Joy, celebration, mourning, and sorrow are woven together like a beautiful, complex tapestry. There were moments of silence, wonder, and even confusion. Themes of infidelity, identity, oppression, injustice, baptism, marriage and family, loss, pain, and Christian thought were strewn throughout. Whispers of questioning the one that is supposed to love you. “Are you cheating on me?”, she vulnerably asks. We see Beyoncé’s soul as she shares her most vulnerable longings and questions with us. Her hardest moments are lived out in front of us.
As she shares her process of hearing the news that her husband has been unfaithful to her, we are invited into her story. To experience her pain. To share it with her. She’s honest and brave and she speaks truthfully about she felt, even when it doesn’t make her look good.
I usually identify most with the pain in someone’s story—feeling all the feels with someone in their pain. I felt her anger, her pain, and the betrayal. And I also found myself deeply moved in the latter half of her story. When I came to hear the first notes of the song Sandcastles, I had to catch my breath and the tears began to fall. You recognize a change instantly. Silence, quiet, peace, calm, just Beyoncé and the piano. It’s stripped back and we see the first glimpse of her husband. She welcomed him back, even though she didn’t think it would be possible. It’s a beautiful picture of redemption, as she says.
And as the camera pans over the room, we see a small kintsugi bowl. If you are unfamiliar with this type of art, it is a Japanese art form of mending and renewal. In it, the artist takes a broken cup or bowl and fills in the cracks and evidences of brokenness with gold. The cracks are laid bare for the observer to see. There is no attempt to hide the trauma or to disguise the pain—instead, it is highlighted and given a place to be honored, be seen, and heal. And that bowl, having been broken and put back together with purpose and gold, is more valuable.
In her descriptions of pain and healing, Beyoncé got it right, I thought. She understands forgiveness, redemption, and renewal. She is longing for more and sees a way forward. She understands it better than the church does sometimes. Better than some who can often make the gospel seem cheap and trite. As if there isn’t a struggle for it. As if in our faith, there is no pain or struggle. Or that we don’t have doubts in the midst of it.
We, like the writer of Ecclesiastes, the Psalmist, and like Beyoncé, have the chance to speak honestly about our world. We can name the struggles, the injustices, the heartaches, the losses, the pain, and be truthful about these things. There is so much to be gained and to learn from this way of telling our stories. And when we communicate truth, like we see in this breathtaking visual album, we point to beauty that is outside ourselves and we give a reason for the hope that is within us. And we can begin to fill the cracks of this world and this life with that hope and with that beauty.
For further reading on kintsugi, read Art + Faith: A Theology of Making by Makoto Fujimura
