Buena Vista Social Club

Criterion shot an interview with director Wim Wenders in 2016, and if you can find it, I highly recommend watching this BEFORE you watch the film. There's a 2 minute clip on youtube if you search for "Wim Wenders on Buena Vista Social Club's Ibrahim Ferrer".

This interview with Wim prepares you and gives you a deeper appreciation for what you're about to see. You'd still appreciate the film without any prep, but if like me, you're completely unfamiliar with the album, the musicians and the story behind this film, then hearing Wim's insights and anecdotes will really pique your interest.

"Buena Vista Social Club" is a documentary shot in Cuba showing the musicians, the culture and the images of Havana as they record the album of the same name. Interspersed between songs, which are generously shown without too many interruptions, are some charming, entertaining, funny and poetic stories told by the musicians themselves.

The reason I recommend the Wim interview is because he gives us context that is otherwise missing or just vaguely implied in the film. And that is: that these 80-odd-year-old musicians, talented as they are, are nobody. They never found success or wealth of any appreciable kind. As Wim explains in the interview, half the original band was supposed to fly in from Africa, but at the last minute they got detained in Paris. So Ry Cooder set about hastily recruiting the local talent to fill the void. That's when the magic happened, and THAT is the story of the film "Buena Vista Social Club".

Wim also explains one of the film's most noticeable "flaws", and that is the grainy, somewhat worn look that it has. It was shot on DigiBeta and MiniDV (back when these were top of the line) meaning 480p (DVD) quality. So although you may expect Havana to pop out of your screen with crisp vibrant colors that you can smell, what we get instead is a slightly archaic look. But this ended up working brilliantly because Wim is telling us a visual story of a bygone, forgotten, faded era. This is no photoshopped travel brochure. Although the scenes are gorgeous, we see clearly that the city is full of poverty, decay and thin layer of grime.

The first time I watched "Buena Vista Social Club" I was unimpressed because I didn't know who these people were, I didn't know why the story is so special, and I didn't like the worn look of the film. But if I had known beforehand that this is not meant to be a normal polished documentary, that it's a story of a bunch of shoeshine boys who can play the heck out of a song, I would've loved it immediately. The 2nd time I watched it (after seeing the Wim interview) I was hooked.

A NOTE ON THE CONTROVERSIAL APPEARANCE OF RY COODER: If you've read a bunch of reviews, you probably noticed that one of the big criticisms is that there's too much Ry Cooder. Honestly after reading a half dozen of these criticisms, I was expecting to see nothing less than Ry's colonoscopy splayed across the screen to the shrill cacophony of 13 slide guitars played at once in different keys. Haha, I'm happy to report that it's not as bad as that. In fact, maybe if you watch this film *expecting* to see too much Ry, then, like me, you'll be pleasantly surprised that it's not as bad as the warnings. Ry Cooder produced this album, and in musical terms that means he was the "director". The producer of a musical recording is the most powerful and characteristic force, artistically speaking (notice how many bands that are produced by the same person often sound so similar that you can't tell them apart, for example the bands AC/DC and the early work of Def Leppard, both produced by John Mutt Lange). Therefore, it makes artistic sense why Ry would have some decent screen time. Not only did he personally select all the band members, but he was right there at the mixing board putting everything together. So yeah, it may seem odd that this non-Cuban is crashing the guarachar. But just keep in mind that he was the guy who pulled this product together. And what a fantastic product it is.

Maybe with this stuff in mind, you'll also see the magic. "Buena Vista Social Club" isn't so much a documentary as it is a monument to all the great musicians and artists hiding out in all the obscure and decayed alleys in all the world. And for my money, this tells the story of music better than any glossy, overproduced biography of any pop star out there. Buena Vista Social Club is the real deal.

Besides the sones, guarachas and boleros (basic styles of good-old Cuban music), the beauty of this documentary relies on Wim Wenders' magnificent camera use.

It is impossible not to feel the emotion of the crowded Carnegie Hall in the climax scenes, but there are also many other images that carry the viewer to more intimate experiences of La Habana, its music and musicians. Wenders' camera takes us to the Conservatory, where pianist Ruben Gonzalez rehearses surrounded by children; or to the Egrem Recording Studio, where singers Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo look at each other's eyes while rendering one of the most beautiful boleros I've heard in my life.

So a man who chases an enthusiasm for Cuban music and ends up spending his own resources to record and popularize a bunch of musicians who would have died in obscurity otherwise, takes great pains to present the music in a relatively unaltered state (unlike some such other world music experimenters like Sting and Paul Simon), and even removes much of his own contributions from the recording mix, is a self-aggrandizing cultural imperialist. The proof of the man's real intentions lies on the disc, an understated and moving documentation of a era that got plowed under by the cold war.

As for the film, indeed it's not perfect. It would be nice to have full songs, but they decided not to go with a strict concert film and concentrate on the project and the stories behind it. If you want more, the CD is easily available and highly recommended. When I saw this movie at the Lincoln Plaza cinema in Manhattan, I decided when the movie ended to trek over a few blocks to the local record store to see if they had the Cd in stock, As I walked down the street, I noticed that most of the people who had just seen the film were going the same way, and indeed, appeared to have the same idea I did (it was a packed show, by the way). It is perhaps a weakness of the film that it depends on the album for it's interest and power, but it is a loving document of the process.

This is a top class film in so many ways.

To start with, there is the amazing backdrop of dilapidated old Havana, which Wenders admittedly got for free. Nevertheless, he pulls out shots which are so luminous and well constructed that they make you gasp, and all done on a digital betacam! This makes BVSC one of the few documentaries I have ever seen which must be seen on the big screen to be fully appreciated. Although I've never been to Havana, it also appeared to me that Wenders may have judged well in his balance by showing Havana as a poor broken down city and not just a place full of '50s cars, grand old buildings and omnipresent "faded glory".

The stars of the film are the old folks, of course. In some ways, the point of the film is not music - this could have been a film about people from any field. Instead, this is simply a record of what people have to say looking back on experiences from their lives which we can never repeat.

Perhaps there was a slight temptation at editing stage to steer the film towards certain themes. There was without a doubt rather a lot of places where the intended conclusion of the audience seemed to be "wow - old men can be cheeky... and they still have libidos!", but maybe only they can say whether the men themselves consider the film to be a fair reflection of the whole of their personalities, and I doubt we will ever find out.

Two points about the musical side. First, I continue to worry about Ry Cooder and his son Joaquim. Do they really need to be there? Ferrer and the old timers all kept tight lipped about Ry's slide guitar, NOT, I thought a prerequisite instrument of the average Cuban "son" band, and dare I say it, distractingly awful in at least one place in the film. Can't comment so much about Joaquim's style when playing the drums, but there must surely be some 50-90 year old cuban drummer cursing his luck that he isn't in on the party thanks to Cooder Jr.?

Second, what do Ferrer et al think about the music they are making now? How does it compare to how they considered they performed in decades gone by? Might they freely admit (as I suspect, honest and carefree as they clearly are) that they are reproducing now something which they did a lot better when they were younger? The question was never asked.

It's a tough point to make, but the average "son" singer does not I imagine consider at the outset of his career that he will only be hitting his peak in his eighth or ninth decade! If they do admit to having had a golden period in the past, why did Wenders not let us see footage of some of that. I doubt if any but a few of his audience have any knowledge of the Cuban music of the 40s and 50s so as to judge with any accuracy what merit there is in the music they are creating today. And without that, the risk is that the players are being cheered not for their musical skills but merely as museum pieces and for the fact that they are capable of doing it at their age at all. I had the slightly uneasy feeling by the end of the film that Wenders might have excluded old footage on the basis that it would show up the modern recordings as something less than the genre at its best.

You should go and see it and then tell me why I am wrong on those points, which hardly dent my rating for this as a definite 9+!

I just got to see this on video last night. It's a lovely film, and the protagonists are memorable. My one problem, however, is with Ry Cooder. Don't misunderstand my admiration for Cooder's past work. He's an original, often evocative guitarist and composer. I just felt that his additions to these recordings -- both in the studio and in their concert versions -- were intrusive at the least. That wailing slide guitar just about ruined some great songs. I'm surprised the gentlemen and ladies of the band didn't say anything. It was a relief when he sat out of a performance. I really wanted to jump into the film, tap him on the shoulder and ask him to put down his guitar and just sit behind the mixing board!

OK. That's my rant. This is an impressive and lovely film.

If you have a chance, track down 1997's Black Tears (lagrimas Negras).