Buena Vista Social Club

In Wim Wenders's "Buena Vista Social Club", Ry Cooder goes to Cuba to bring some of the island's great musicians to the world's attention. Obviously the best part of the documentary is the music, but we also get to learn about the singers' lives.

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".

There is not much good about this documentary other than the music. The narrative is lacking, the interviews are short and boring, the camera work is poor, the editing is disjointed.

I would like to start off by saying how angry and distressed i was to read the foul narrow minded commentary by whichever person wrote the review stating that it is the worst documentary and a complete hash in fact i don't blame him/her that much because we are all in titled to our own opinions but IMDb should not have put that as the main page of this movie's commentary. The person who wrote this commentary is obviously incapable of watching and giving credit to anything apart from big budget Hollywood American stereotype films.

In a tribute to the spirit of Cuba and in reference to a dance hall that has long since gone, a group of elderly Cuban musicians to record an album together. Many of the musicians either left Cuba before Castro or were expelled or escaped once he took control.

Most people don't seem to have seen the movie from the very beginning. Cooder and Wenders were in Cuba to film with some Japanese Musicans who had problems with their visas or whatever and didn't make it in time, so they just went to look for some local musicians in order not to waste their time in Cuba.

Most documentaries these days are nothing more than masked narratives, some semblance of reality (often largely fictitious) structured as a story meant to grip. They grip and hold on to.

One could describe it as a life lesson. A seminar for anyone involved in any art form.

In the late 1990's musician Ry Cooder went to Cuba and rounded up a bunch of legendary Cuban musicians to form a group known collectively as the Buena Vista Social Club. This group wound up recording an album that sold in mass volume and won a well-deserved Grammy.