I went to this film expecting to see an interesting documentary and hear
good music. What I experienced was so much more! If you feel depressed by
all the doom and gloom fed to us by the news media and want your spirits
lifted don't miss this film.
How did the music of the Buena Vista Social Club spread world wide?
In 1995 guitarist Ry Cooder travelled to Havana to find some of the
country's traditional music and record it. He re-discovered forgotten
Cuban musicians of extraordinary talent. He called the album "The Buena
Vista Social Club" after a place where many musicians used to gather to
play in the days before the Castro regime in Cuba. This album has sold
more than a million copies worldwide and in 1998 it won the Grammy Award
for Best Tropical Latin Album.
Who are the musicians?
Ibrahim Ferrer had been singing professionally in Cuba since 1941.
Re-discovered at age seventy he sang with the same vibrancy that had won
him success earlier, but this didn't happen instantly. He had been shining
shoes and was reluctant to return to singing. Once he made a tentative
beginning the music flowed with ever-increasing joy.
Ruben Gonzalez at seventy seven plays the piano with such superb skill that
Ry Cooder described him as "the greatest piano soloist I have ever heard in
my life". He too was reluctant at first, but was persuaded to return to
his music.
Compay Segundo is the lead guitarist who at age ninety is full of youthful
vigour - so much that he declares that at ninety he wants to father his
sixth child!
Omara Portuondo is the only woman in the group. She is sixty eight and in
the heyday of her singing career she worked with Nat King Cole.
Eleven other musicians were deeply involved in the production of the music.
Forget their ages and listen to the music and you hear it as the outpouring
of youthful zeal for life and music. Their ages then seem to come as an
astounding revelation. Their performances are all the more extraordinary
when you consider that they had become disillusioned and had to be
persuaded to perform again.
Wim Wenders persuaded to film the successful group
Two years after the recording of the album Ry Cooder persuaded the
successful film producer Wim Wenders to go with him to Cuba and film the
story of the musicians. And that is what resulted, not just a film of
people playing wonderful music, but performances interwoven with a
presentation of the lives and interaction of the musicians themselves.
Hearing their personal stories made the filming of their faces as they
played all the more moving - such an outpouring of joy from people who had
been so disillusioned. Those musicians with joy on their faces included Ry
Cooder as he played with the group, showing total absorption in the
seemingly miraculous experience he had been able to mastermind.
The setting in Cuba is filmed in some detail, and the episode where Ry
Cooder is out on the motorbike is used to introduce scenes which portray an
environment which I can best describe as a city with buildings not
maintained in many cases since the first half of the twentieth century but
left to deteriorate slowly from their earlier prosperous image. It is
against this backdrop of disillusionment and decay that the musical miracle
takes place.
The film ends with moving scenes that create a memorable climax - the
concert in Carnegie Hall in New York, the standing ovations and the
tumultuous applause from the audience.
The extraordinary renaissance of the musicians' performance skills will
surely make those who see this film believe that there can be hope even
where it seems that the days of happiness are long since passed away.