In this age of Google searches, Wikipedia pages for every artist and blogs for every topic, a true music mystery like the one in "Searching for Sugar Man" seems impossible.
But that's what surrounded Sixto Rodriguez, an early-1970s next-big-thing whose career fizzled in the United States before he became an underground superstar in apartheid-era South Africa. The enigmatic artist left few clues in his liner notes, and the stories of his death were contradictory. Some say he set himself on fire. Others swear they witnessed the artist shoot himself onstage.
Malik Bendjelloul's superb documentary covers the 1990s investigation by fans to reveal Rodriguez's true fate, and it re-examines his place in rock history. The handful of people in the United States who heard his music, including producers who worked with the greatest Motown and folk music acts of the 1960s and '70s, consider him an elite talent. But your own ears can tell you that - his music has aged as well as Gram Parsons' and early Dylan.
"Searching" has emotional valleys and zeniths, and gasp-inducing turns, as old friends, fans and Rodriguez's grown daughters are interviewed. But there's still a meditative quality, thanks to Bendjelloul's deft use of Rodriguez's haunting music over mystic aerial cinematography, gritty scenes in South Africa and Detroit, and some brief and subtle animated sequences. Music executive Clarence Avant says Rodriguez sold about six copies of each of his two albums. Multiply that by the number of people who see this movie.
If you trust this review, make it the last piece of text you read about the film before catching a screening of "Searching for Sugar Man." (It opens at the Embarcadero in San Francisco on Friday and then across the Bay Area in following weeks.) Much that has been written about the film has been almost passive-aggressively spoiler-ish. In just this one case, Wikipedia is not your friend.
Rating : 3/5
Movie Review Searching for Sugar Man Documentary, English Movie Review
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