389 - Buena Vista Social Club, Germany/United States, 1999. Dir. Wim Wenders.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

389 - Buena Vista Social Club, Germany/United States, 1999.  Dir. Wim Wenders.

Ibrahim Ferrer sings about the lily.  The white lily.

But we will get to that in a moment.

Right now Tula's bedroom is on fire.

Somebody call Compay to come put it out.

But Compay started it.

Not with a match but with his soul.  With his rhythm.  With his fingers on a guitar.

Compay Segundo is 90 years old.  He has five children and he tells us he is working on his sixth.  He is dressed to the nines.  A tall man in a tall suit.  And he looks like a million dollars.  He says women, flowers, and romance are lovely.  He looks as though he knows what he is talking about.  As though he has ignited things before.

No wonder Tula's bedroom is on fire.

The song is "El Cuarto de Tula," and in the lyrics Tula's bedroom catches on fire because she forgot to blow out the candle before falling asleep.  But the double meaning is also there.  Everyone in the neighborhood wants to come extinguish the fire.  Everyone loves Tula.  She has started fires in all of them.

German director Wim Wenders is taking us on a tour through Cuba.  He is introducing us to the members of the Buena Vista Social Club.  A band named after a real club that existed in Buenavista, Havana, and that was hopping in the 1940s.

These musicians were alive in the 1940s.  Some of them were alive in the 1910s.  And they were forging new music.  New styles.  New sounds.

Fifty years later they have been forgotten.  A piano player without a piano.  A singer working odd jobs to make ends meet.

National treasures discarded by the wayside.

Until Nick Gold organizes a project.  And Ry Cooder produces a record.  And Juan de Marcos Gonzalez directs the band.

The album, Buena Vista Social Club, came out in 1996.  And it sparked a sensation.  People all around the world had to get a copy.

Then in 1998 our man Wim Wenders followed them around.  And left us this beautiful legacy.  As each member of the band tells his story.  And we watch them play.  In Havana.  In Amsterdam.  At Carnegie Hall.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Create new forms of music and wait fifty years for the public to rediscover you.

Ibrahim Ferrer's voice is as smooth as silk.

Ruben Gonzalez's piano is a tiramisu.  Or in this case maybe a dulce de leche.

Ruben Gonzalez plays so high up the piano scale he needs more piano.  The audience in Carnegie Hall claps.  They appreciate him.  He is 80 and still playing like that.  Compay Segundo is 90 and still playing like that.  Ibrahim is in his 70s and still singing like that.  It is incredible.

This is a special moment.

A super group.  Blending together as if they had been playing together their whole lives.

Septuagenarians, octogenarians, and nonagenarians playing with the facility of youth.  Supple.  Smooth.  Dexterous.

And having a great time.

After a brief meeting with photographer Alfredo Korda, the film begins with Wenders following Compay Segundo around the neighborhoods of Buenavista looking for the social club.

Compay is famous.  Everyone in the neighborhood knows him.  And he delights in his fame.  He tells two older men his recipe for the perfect cure for a hangover.  Black cocoquetta soup.  Chicken consomme.  Fried chicken neck tossed in garlic.

Anyone who eats that will have no aches and pains.

So says Compay.  Try it and let me know how it works.

Compay asks the residents, "Where is the Buena Vista Social Club?"  Everyone knows exactly where it is.  Everyone has a different story to tell about it.  Everyone gives him different directions.  In the end they never find it.  Wenders says they started to wonder if it ever existed.  But at least they had a great day.

When the band goes to Amsterdam it is the first time they play together as a band in front of an audience.  The reception is spectacular.  People give them standing ovations throughout the show.  The musicians are blown away.  They have never experienced anything like it.

Back in Cuba Ibrahim Ferrar and Omara Portuondo sing a duet as if they were lifelong lovers.  Sweet.  Plaintive.  Mournful.  Their microphones face each other and the camera moves in circles around them.  She is looking up at him with her eyes full of life.  Full of love.  He is singing from the depths of his soul but with a lightness of touch that walks on water.

The spikenards and the roses
The white lilies
And my soul
So very sad and sorrowful
It wants to hide from the flowers.
Its bitter pain
I don't want the flowers to know

Ibrahim has just come off the street.  Thirty minutes ago he was shining someone's shoes.  Paying his bills.  Now he is in the studio recording a marvel.  Something that will be loved throughout history.

Wenders says they came back later to record a solo album with Ibrahim.  "I was completely taken away by his persona and his character and his gentleness.  He's an unbelievable man."

If they knew how I'm suffering
They too would weep for my sorrow
Hush
For they are sleeping
The spikenards and the lilies
I don't want them to know
Of my sorrows
For it they see me weeping
They will die.

Yet despite the sorrow, there is hope for the lily.  Because the lily is loved.  Loved more than she may ever know.

One can feel the tenderness and sensitivity in these great artists.  They have lived it.

During the song the film segues back and forth between the studio in Havana and the concert in Amsterdam, the two pros singing, backed by the band.

Wenders spends time with each of the musicians.  He shows them in the studio.  He shows them in the streets.  He shows them in concert.  At some point during the film each player gets a solo.  And each gets to tell his story.

Ibrahim picked up a staff when his mother died.  He still carries it.  He has been carrying his staff for 58 years.

"I love all the streets of Havana.  I could shoot there forever.  I could shoot day and night.  Wherever you go, each street is another adventure.  Havana just looks so incredible." - Wim Wenders.

All these great Cuban players, who forged new sounds in music in the 1940s, have been brought together again in 1998.

The producers caught them just in time, as by now, twenty years later, so many of them have passed away.  In some cases they got to enjoy another decade of success and prosperity.  A fitting ending to a long life of art and struggle.

For this we owe Nick Gold and Ry Cooder and Juan de Marcos and Wim Wenders our gratitude.

Thank you, Gentlemen.

Thank you.


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The Players

Octavio Calderon, Joachim Cooder, Ry Cooder, Angel Terry Domech, Ibrahim Ferrer, Ibrahim Ferrer Jr., Manuel Galban, Roberto Garcia, Hugo Garzon, Carlos Gonzalez, Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, Ruben Gonzalez, Pio Leyva, Manuel "Puntillita" Licea, Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez, Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal, Eliades Ochoa, Gilberto "Papi" Oviedo, Alejandro Pichardo, Yanko Pichardo, Omara Portuondo, Jesus "Aguaje" Ramos, Salvador Repilado, Jose Antonio Rodriguez, Compay Segundo, Benito Suarez, Barbarito Torres, Amadito Valdes, Alberto "Virgilio" Valdes, Lazaro Villa.