Saturday, November 16, 2024

Buena Vista Social Club (1999)

Buena Vista Social Club (1999)

directed by Wim Wenders

105 minutes

mostly in Spanish with English subtitles

This documentary explores the music and delves a bit into the life stories of a dozen or more Cuban musicians. It followed a 1996 album of the same name which was brought together by Ry Cooder and Juan de Marcos González. The musicians interviewed and featured in this documentary include Compay Segundo, Eliades Ochoa, Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo, Rubén González, Orlando ‘Cachaíto’ López, Barbarito Torres, Amadito Valdés, and Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal. Joachim Cooder, son of Ry Cooder, accompanied his father on the trip to Havana and played drums and other percussive instruments in some of the performances.

The documentary gives each of the musicians named above (and a few more) a spotlight at some point in the movie to talk about their music and their lives.

The real highlight of the movie is the music but it was also an opportunity to capture some stories on film that may not have been captured anywhere else.

According to my research there have been follow ups (in the forms of albums and documentaries) to this documentary.

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