Buena Vista Social Club [1999]

The fact that there are two films in one by being able to turn on or off Wenders's commentary makes the most of what's on the disc. With commentary on, the background to what you see is fully described, with Wenders's commentary non-stop throughout.

With his commentary off, you see a different film - an enjoyable introduction to the marvellous characters that make up the group and the concert sequences, which succeed in bringing out the sheer pleasure they had playing together. This aspect - and the actual music itself - is pure feel-good and can be guaranteed to raise your spirits.

However, I agree with those who note that there is much that the film could have explored that simply isn't covered. Did the B.V.S.C. ever really exist? The film suggests that it may have but none of the musicians are filmed describing it or whether they played there - or not. Compay Segundo is seen tooling round in a drop-top, clutching a large cigar and asking a few locals who all point in different directions. He himself seemed not to know. His main contribution in this sequence is giving his recipe for chicken soup hangover cure to a couple of other oldsters.

Cooder's access to Cuba, especially on his first trip in the '70s, is covered by his line, "I went down there by boat with my wife." Behind this statement is a very intriguing story but we are never told it. The same goes for his subsequent trips and what must have been the moving of mountains to get the Carnegie Hall concert on. The only reference to how they came to play there is Cooder's reference to " a lot of hard work by a lot of people."

Cooder was fined a 6-figure $ sum for going to Cuba but this is not mentioned. These guys, despite being harmless o.a.p.s, were citizens of an enemy state of the USA. A sequence well worth including would have been interviews with whoever at the State Department swung it for Cooder & Wenders, why and how they did that. Did it go right to the top? Surely so: how did they keep Clinton off-stage, clutching his sax? Maybe there's a connection here with his supply of cigars ....

So, an entertaining film featuring wonderful music and lovable characters but as a documentary, full of holes.


Far more than the sum of its (very rhythmic) parts   January 25, 2005
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

I got the CD for Christmas and to be honest, only really like two or three tracks. But the film knocked my socks off.

It's effectively a series of film portraits of great Cuban musicians, a record of their music and a recording of two concerts where they all came together in Amsterdam and in Carnegie Hall. But the sum of its parts is far more than that.

The filming is clever - it moves easily from recording session to interview to monologue to just great music. There's no obvious trickery though I'm sure some slick editing went into making it so watchable. The way the sounds blend between sections is inspired.

Somehow, music that I found annoyingly sentimental and a bit raucous when I listened to it, became wonderfully sentimental and energetic when I was watching it. It's a bit like the difference between seeing a great musician live and listening to a recording. The musicians are clearly enjoying themselves and really feeling the music they're making. I love watching talented improvisers feeding off each other like that. And having fun!

I'm going to listen to the music again, properly, and see if I like it any better now... some of the singing is not really my thing but Gonzalez was so fantastic, and Barbarito Torres, and the percussionist whose name I can't remember...

Partly, there was a feeling that the project (not the film so much as Cooder's recordings with Juan de Marcos Gonzalez) was an attempt to capture this stuff before everyone who knows it dies. But what really shone through was a sense of life, vivacity, and love of music.