Buena Vista Social Club

Movies 365: Day 20 – Buena Vista Social Club

As a narrative, Buena Vista Social Club is more of a failure than a success, but as a film about music, and some great musicians, it fortunately succeeds. The film focuses on musician Ry Cooder going to Cuba to record an album with a group of traditional Cuban musicians named after a famous members dance club in Havana pre-Castro. LIke I said, the narrative of the film is weak, director Wim Winders doesn’t seem too interested in a straight forward telling of the story of how the record, and resulting concerts came to be, rather, he’s more interested in the music, and Cuba. As the band either plays the track live in Amseterdam, or records it in Cuba, the music continues to underscore the ensuing scenes, some of which are beautifully shot, kids taking gymnastics, men and women rolling cigars, this is the way Wenders wants us to see Cuba, and to understand the music. Interspersed through the film are interviews with many of the musicians, which are all interesting in their own ways. I suppose the problem is that Wenders kind of wants things both ways, he wants to make a concert film and a documentary, he isn’t entirely successful at doing either, as he splits his time between the two too much to make either a true success. That said, the one thing that absolutely needs to be good in this film is, and that’s the music. Some of it is great up beat stuff, other pieces are sad and haunting, the one thing that’s for sure is that it’s all good. It’s unfortunate that the film that surrounds this amazing music, isn’t up to par with it’s soundtrack.