Buena Vista Social Club
Director: Wim Wenders
Year Released: 1999
Rating: 3.0
A feel-good celebration of Cuban music and nothing more: it keeps its focus solely on the talents of the impossibly old but ridiculously talented musicians almost lost with time, avoiding any sort of political statement or elaborate probing of their pasts. In a way, this is a smart move on Wenders' part - he wants to separate Castro from the music - but in keeping the documentary strictly about the recordings and concert footage (including a memorable show at the Carnegie Hall), there's something lacking - at the end, we still aren't sure who these men and women are, and where they began. For all its shortcomings, however, seeing this group of people having a lot of fun making music is inspirational.
