The Buena Vista Social Club

viewed February 5, 2000 on video

For full information about this film, click here

Documentary on long-forgotten sol musicians of Cuba, re-discovered by country great Ry Cooder and brought into worldwide recognition.  Unfortunately there's too much Cooder in the film (even though he hardly says a word) -- for some reason director Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, The End of Violence) chooses to have every shot of the wizened, noble Cubans matched with a shot of Cooder's silent approbation.   The Cubans are the real heart and soul of this movie, and it seems there's nothing more that Wenders needs to do but point the camera as they talk about their life histories, walk through their neighborhoods, and best of all, perform their music.  

The film takes a great leap into the heavens in the first half hour, where we get to see their performances, interspersed with precious footage of Cuba's streets and people.  Then it levels off as Wenders methodically introduces each musician, circling the camera around them, a not altogether successful act of stylistic staging.  The more aged performers (as much as 92 years old) are far and away the most interesting: singer Ibrahim Ferrer (the Nat King Cole of sol) and pianist Ruben Gonzales are clearly the most interesting performers, whose faces seem carved out by the turbulent history of their homeland.

The film gets a rise at the end when the performers make an exclusive engagement with Carnegie Hall.  Their journeys around New York are delightfully sentimental, as Ferrer snaps pictures of the busy streets and Gonzales has trouble identifying replicas of John Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe.  Overall, this is the least frigid and melancholy of Wenders' work, ironically because he refrains from imposing his outlook of hapless alienation on these beleaguered but triumphant individuals.  He has also checked his inclination for sentimentalizing the human spirit, which would have taken the quiet triumphs of his impoverished subjects and drowned them in a pool of syrup.  In short, Wenders has succeeded in communicating his ideas by standing back and letting the Cubans speak for him.

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