Review of Buena Vista Social Club

I had heard many good things about this movie, and finally found a rep house playing it at a time I could catch it. Boy, was I disappointed. Sure, the music is wonderful, and the musicians are interesting people. But what did Wim Wenders (who has not made a good movie in nearly 15 years) do to make this a good movie? Where was the insight into the old "Buena Vista Social Club"? why didn't he take us back to it, so we could get a feel for what it was like? Why didn't we hear more about the past, about the difficulties the musicians faced? About Cuba and being a musician in Cuba? Instead we get a 2-hour commercial to sell Cuban CDs. Not that they don't deserve that, but I have seen many documentaries where the heart and soul of the story is told in a moving way. Here, there was a story to be told about people who have a lot of heart and soul, but the opportunity was completely wasted by Wenders, who instead just told the much less interesting story about a handful of older Cuban musicians who got together to put on some new concerts and record some new albums. His style of just going through each musician one-by-one with a brief interview lacked any originality whatsoever.

Good music, bad movie, and almost no insight into Cuba the country (aside from a few nice visual shots of the streets of Havana). For a good documentary, see "Hoop Dreams" or "35 Up" or "Children of Fate". For a good film about Cuba see "Strawberries and Chocolate". And for good Cuban music, buy the CDs or go to the concerts, if any of the musicians make it to your hometown. The only thing redeeming about this movie are the musicians and the music, which is what makes it better than "Million Dollar Hotel" which was awful.