Director Wim Wenders
Stars Luis Barzaga, Joachim Cooder, Ry Cooder, Julio Alberto Fernández, Ibrahim Ferrer, Carlos González, Rubén González, Eliades Ochoa, Omara Portuondo, Compay Segundo
Certificate
Running time 104 mins
Made Cuba 1998


WHEN in 1996, guitarist Ry Cooder brought together some of greatest Cuban Sol players to record an album, even he didn't expect the huge success that would accompany the project. To the outside world they were forgotten. Even in Havana they were considered long retired. Yet Cooder sought out these ageing and spirited greats and recorded them. The result was "The Buena Vista Social Club", a Grammy award-winning and best-selling album with infectious big band rhythms, warmth and energy.

Director Wim Wenders, an old friend of Ry Cooder, was there to document this extraordinary music when Cooder returned to record front man Ibrahim Ferrer's solo album two years later. Their's must be a special relationship -- Cooder worked with Wenders on various film projects, most memorably "Paris, Texas" -- and it comes across in the film. The subjects trust and work with the camera, they are easy and relaxed.

In turn, Wenders lets the musicians express themselves as they know how. Mixed in with concert and recording studio footage, are solo performances and individual band member interviews. Each of them reveals a simple, often hard life and a shared passion for music that has not been worn by age.

The spirit is strong. "If we followed the way of possessions we would have disappeared long ago," says Ibrahim Ferrer, the vocal star, who Ry Cooder refers to as a "Cuban Nat Kin Cole". The comment resonates right through to the final showdown at the Carnegie Hall in July 1998: for all their poverty and years of isolation Cuban culture reveals itself to be a generous and vibrant one.

Wenders narrative is like a voyage of discovery, seamlessly interweaving footage from live concerts, the recording studio sessions, jams and interviews to great effect. The music plays and the camera drifts through a sun-baked, crumbling, but distinguished Havana like a sea breeze.

There are so many memorable moments in this documentary that you will want to go back to it. Most of all the music is fantastic, warm, rich, and poignant. Wenders is right when he describes it as "miraculous".

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