Searching for Sugar Man
Directed by: Malik Bendjelloul
2012
A modern Cinderella tale, Searching for Sugar Man merges dingy Detroit with liberal Cape Town, a humble constructor worker with an inspiring and loved rockstar.
Searching for Sugar Man combines the mystery and excitement of a detective story with the aura and mysticism of an adored and mythic rockstar. The documentary tells the incredible story of Sixto Rodriguez, a lost and forgotten musical promise from Detroit, whose albums, at his unknown, became the soundtrack to the hot 1970s in South Africa. Director Malik Bendjelloul follows the quest of two South Africans, in which they join forces in the search of the mysterious rockstar idol Rodriguez, whose lyrics and songs they know by heart but whose story and existence remains unknown and untraceable. While all they wanted to retrieve was the past of a disappeared music talent, they end up finding much more than they expected and ever imagined...
Bendjelloul’s documentary tells the extraordinary destiny of a 1970s rockstar, but it also evokes from a very unusual point of view the apartheid years in South Africa and racism in America. While American producers speculate that Rodriguez’s first album Cold Fact flopping in the United States was partly due to his spanish-sounding name, his music responded in spirit and force to the raising anti-establishment feeling of the 1970s in South Africa. In Detroit Rodriguez was only known as a construction worker, in Cape Town he became in those years ‘more famous than Elvis’. While leaving you bewildered and mouth-open, Searching for Sugar Man makes you question how many talents and artists has history lost only because they were born at the wrong moment, in the wrong place.
If Rodriguez’s story carries much of the documentary, his figure at the end is what remains the most moving and inspiring part of the film. The first words spoken by Rodriguez on camera deliver a rare moment of humbleness, in which silences speak more than words. Bendjelloul’s composes a wonderful portrait in some breathtaking shots of the black, staggering silhouette of Rodriguez, walking against the backdrop of smokey, industrial Detroit. Much of the description of Rodriguez’s life is left to his daughters, friends and construction works’ boss. In front of the camera, however, Rodriguez still blurs feelings and certainties, leaving a spell of mystery and unspoken, but present wisdom.
It might well be that Searching for Sugar Man will bring to Rodriguez’s music the wide recognition it deserves, as the albums Cold Fact and Coming From Reality offer the soundtrack to the documentary. As you travels through this incredible story of fame and oblivion, the songs rings as uncanny reminiscences: half lost, unknown tunes and half mythic, historic pieces.
Searching for Sugar Man is an inspiring, moving and incredible story which deserves to be listen to, beyond its music.
fiamma
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