Criterion shot an interview with director Wim Wenders in 2016, and if you can find it, I highly recommend watching this BEFORE you watch the film. There's a 2 minute clip on youtube if you search for "Wim Wenders on Buena Vista Social Club's Ibrahim Ferrer".
This interview with Wim prepares you and gives you a deeper appreciation for what you're about to see. You'd still appreciate the film without any prep, but if like me, you're completely unfamiliar with the album, the musicians and the story behind this film, then hearing Wim's insights and anecdotes will really pique your interest.
"Buena Vista Social Club" is a documentary shot in Cuba showing the musicians, the culture and the images of Havana as they record the album of the same name. Interspersed between songs, which are generously shown without too many interruptions, are some charming, entertaining, funny and poetic stories told by the musicians themselves.
The reason I recommend the Wim interview is because he gives us context that is otherwise missing or just vaguely implied in the film. And that is: that these 80-odd-year-old musicians, talented as they are, are nobody. They never found success or wealth of any appreciable kind. As Wim explains in the interview, half the original band was supposed to fly in from Africa, but at the last minute they got detained in Paris. So Ry Cooder set about hastily recruiting the local talent to fill the void. That's when the magic happened, and THAT is the story of the film "Buena Vista Social Club".
Wim also explains one of the film's most noticeable "flaws", and that is the grainy, somewhat worn look that it has. It was shot on DigiBeta and MiniDV (back when these were top of the line) meaning 480p (DVD) quality. So although you may expect Havana to pop out of your screen with crisp vibrant colors that you can smell, what we get instead is a slightly archaic look. But this ended up working brilliantly because Wim is telling us a visual story of a bygone, forgotten, faded era. This is no photoshopped travel brochure. Although the scenes are gorgeous, we see clearly that the city is full of poverty, decay and thin layer of grime.
The first time I watched "Buena Vista Social Club" I was unimpressed because I didn't know who these people were, I didn't know why the story is so special, and I didn't like the worn look of the film. But if I had known beforehand that this is not meant to be a normal polished documentary, that it's a story of a bunch of shoeshine boys who can play the heck out of a song, I would've loved it immediately. The 2nd time I watched it (after seeing the Wim interview) I was hooked.
A NOTE ON THE CONTROVERSIAL APPEARANCE OF RY COODER: If you've read a bunch of reviews, you probably noticed that one of the big criticisms is that there's too much Ry Cooder. Honestly after reading a half dozen of these criticisms, I was expecting to see nothing less than Ry's colonoscopy splayed across the screen to the shrill cacophony of 13 slide guitars played at once in different keys. Haha, I'm happy to report that it's not as bad as that. In fact, maybe if you watch this film *expecting* to see too much Ry, then, like me, you'll be pleasantly surprised that it's not as bad as the warnings. Ry Cooder produced this album, and in musical terms that means he was the "director". The producer of a musical recording is the most powerful and characteristic force, artistically speaking (notice how many bands that are produced by the same person often sound so similar that you can't tell them apart, for example the bands AC/DC and the early work of Def Leppard, both produced by John Mutt Lange). Therefore, it makes artistic sense why Ry would have some decent screen time. Not only did he personally select all the band members, but he was right there at the mixing board putting everything together. So yeah, it may seem odd that this non-Cuban is crashing the guarachar. But just keep in mind that he was the guy who pulled this product together. And what a fantastic product it is.
Maybe with this stuff in mind, you'll also see the magic. "Buena Vista Social Club" isn't so much a documentary as it is a monument to all the great musicians and artists hiding out in all the obscure and decayed alleys in all the world. And for my money, this tells the story of music better than any glossy, overproduced biography of any pop star out there. Buena Vista Social Club is the real deal.
