BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB (67)

Directed by: Wim Wenders

The Pitch: The story of a group of old-time Cuban musicians (average age around 80), who languished forgotten for many years till tracked down and reunited by composer / producer Ry Cooder.

Theo Sez: Those misguided few looking for objective guidelines to cinematic excellence can pretty much go with the rating above ; anyone who's a bit of a dreamer, though, or a bit of a romantic, nostalgically attached to lost causes and vanished times, should put this madly evocative piece at the very top of their priorities (I toyed briefly with giving it an 85 or something, just on emotional impact, but a sense of duty prevailed). There are unequivocal delights (ocean spray exploding over the rundown grandeur of Havana's waterfront, a dapper octogenarian introducing himself by solemnly announcing that he was born legitimate), but Wenders' orderly, reductive way of moving from musician to musician, with a short segment on each - "You komm in vun at a time, ja," you can almost hear him saying, "und state your name for ze camera" - seems all wrong for this jazzy, laid-back material, and he's criminally negligent in not probing further into the past, merely repeating that these musicians were "forgotten" for many years (no doubt deliberate, so as not to distract from the music, but you still want to know - do they feel incongruous in Fidel's Cuba? what do they think of the way the country's changed since they were starting out?) ; it's a studied neutrality, most damaging perhaps when the film follows them to New York for a Carnegie Hall concert - their first time in the US, the country that's shaped their lives more than any other - and records only bland observations on how big and shiny everything is, sounding for all the world like some dopey, borderline-condescending Adopt-A-Cuban-Oldie scheme. Still, no film (or, more accurately, no CD) in ages has pierced so deep or left me with so much ; if you feel nothing, during the opening bars of "Chan Chan", when that dreamy swaying music starts up, calling up sultry days and the shade of palm trees, old superstitions and the names of forgotten Cuban villages (long since re-named, no doubt, for heroes of the Revolution), if you don't choke up just a little ... well, then you're obviously not me. But you probably knew that.