Foivos Vlahos One could describe it as a life lesson. A seminar for anyone involved in any art form. The internal recognition and peace with no need for wide acceptance, glory or money. Giants of the musical firmament that their food was the greatness of their soul and their love for music. Human sensitivity and romanticism at the height of their beauty. Their gold, the human values, honor and dignity. Lovers of love and truth. All these huge musicians appearing give us a life lesson. Simplicity as something more precious than all the treasures of the world. Wenders once again shows its quality. And a big thanks to Ry Cooder who brought to light these diamonds of world civilization.

Lee Eisenberg 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. One of the neatest scenes is when the club goes to New York and performs in Carnegie Hall. During that sequence, Ibrahim Ferrer and Eliades Ochoa go to the top of a building and have a look at the city, and we even catch a shot of the World Trade Center*.But more than anything, it's great to hear this music. Ferrer, Ochoa, Compay Segundo, Omara Portuondo, and the rest show us that Cuba's culture will never die.*It will soon be the tenth anniversary of the attack.

chaos-rampant 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. This is not that type, although it's loosely a story. It's more properly a frame, a portal; into the lives of ageing Cuban musicians brought out of retirement and obscurity for one last round, recast as memory of a time and place.Like their music, the film is not about spine-tingling rhythms or crescendos. It is mostly a colorful lull with the sweet pull of a hot summer night. A pull into anecdotes about life in old Cuba and snapshots of the present one. We never get to know any of the players well enough, but we spend with them time enough to soak up the atmosphere of being there.Being there is what the movie is all about. The wise choice of digital video abets this, the palpable immediacy. Wenders' camera tricks are superfluous then, because the material doesn't need any mediating. The only thing required of the camera here is to transport us.And it does. Watching this, I felt like it was the first time I was seeing New York (when eventually the band flies there for one night of apotheosis at the Carnegie Hall). We walk the streets, also back in Cuba. Glimpses of life abound, some spontaneous others not so much. Wonderful architecture, colonial remnants wasting away with the last signs of a revolution heading south. A building sign reads "KARL MA X", the R missing and no one bothered to replace it. But we so rarely get to see these things in movies, that it's a breath of fresh air. But in order for the film to breathe into you, you need to have devoted part of yourself and have an affinity for untravellled cinematic space. For the place, despite the narrative. We get plenty of that here.

Scott Wim Wenders heads to Cuba with country music guitarist Ry Cooder to produce an album about traditional Cuban music as played and sung by those artists still alive to play the songs. With most of the artist's ages topping the 80's, the power with which they sing and play will knock your socks off. Each person has a story. One didn't sing for ten years before this because there was no money in singing in Cuba. Another worked with a blind bandleader who would get uproariously drunk and chase after people in a blind, drunken rage. The movie was about more than just the music. The people themselves are the reason why the movie and the music is still around. True that can be said about all different kinds of music, but it's these people's spice to life that make their form of music all the more interesting. Would the Beatles be the Beatles today had Paul and John not been in fierce competition with each other? They all had the music in them, but sometimes it's the people that make the music interesting. After the album, "The Buena Vista Social Club" reached popular success in the States, Cooder took the group on a worldwide tour to play in Amsterdam and finally in Carnegie Hall in New York City. Some of the movie takes place during these concerts, showcasing each artist's particular addition to the band. This is then paralleled by a personal showcase of the artist playing their instrument as the camera swirls around their bodies, examining every part of them in an attempt to uncover and find out what makes them so great. This is probably my favorite Wim Wenders film as the topic is so nostalgic it fills my heart with grief to think of pre-50's Havana as gone. And I was born in 1985. Picked this up at the University library on VHS. Would like to see Wim Wenders' commentary on the film on DVD.