Reggae, dub & ska are extremely popular musical genres with documentarians, and it can be hard to believe that any figure in Jamaican music hasn't already been covered in film to the point of oversaturation. This would seem to be especially true of Lee "Scratch" Perry, perhaps the towering figure of dub music and one of pop music's all-time mad geniuses. So influential in the world of Jamaican music is Perry that he's been featured in nearly every single film or television documentary about it, but amazingly enough, this is the first one to focus on him exclusively — a fact that's almost unbelievable given the reach of his five-decade career.
The Upsetter, written and directed by Ethan Higbee and Adam Bhala Lough, certainly can't be accused of not paying its subject the proper respect. The filmmakers are almost uncannily attuned to Perry's colossal reputation — to a fault, in fact: they treat Perry, whose appeal rests largely on a sly sense of humor and a reputation as a bit of a crazy, with a degree of whispering awe that verges on the reverential. While his contributions to the world of music certainly justify such treatment, treating Perry like a messenger of Jah kind of takes the fun out of his music. Higbee and Lough likewise don't really want us to think of Perry as nuts, as if his being nuts in any way detracts from the brilliance of his creations, and they go a bit out of their way to try and illustrate that he's just operating on some sort of higher spiritual plane. There's also the common problem of music documentaries: with a limited amount of screen time, you can't give too many minutes to the most appealing thing about them: their music. The Upsetter's 93-minute runtime is barely enough to cover one of Lee Perry's groundbreaking albums, and too much of it is handed over to big names like Paul McCartney and the Beastie Boys, who pontificate about how great Perry is at the expense of playing his actual music, which would prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Does this all mean that The Upsetter isn't worth seeing, however? Absolutely not. Whatever its other flaws — and, to be fair to Higbee and Lough, they stem more from the nature of music docs more than any inherent problem with their approach — it's still an hour and a half of absolutely fantastic music from one of the most unique talents in the business, and there's tons of rare and entertaining archival footage as well as more Lee Perry on camera than you'll ever see anywhere else. The pure joy, complexity and heaviness of the man's music alone makes this a movie worth seeing, and for all its reverence, it provides some nice insight into that music's architect as well.
