Searching For Sugar Man Blu Ray Review

If someone was to ask you do you know of a musician who is regarded bigger than Elvis better than Bob Dylan you would probably laugh in that persons face and tell them there's no one. In Mallick Bendjelloul's Searching For Sugar Man he introduces to the world that person, his name is Sixto Rodriguez an unknown but gifted latino American singer songwriter whose fame and success is the inspiration behind a nation's rise against their oppressors to become a nation once again.

Searching For Sugar Man tells the story of (Sixto) Rodriguez a Mexican American singer songwriter who was discovered in the late 1960's by two celebrated producers awestruck by his soulful melodies and prophetic lyrics. They went onto to record 2 albums which were to secure Rodriguez's reputation as one of the finest recording artists of his generation, however the albums bombed the singer disappeared into oblivion  amid rumours of gruesome onstage suicide. Whist Rodriguez sunk without trace in his homeland thousands of miles away on the other side of the world unknown to him his music becomes the voice of the resistance in Apartheid South Africa . Thanks to two of those South African Fans embark on a investigation on what really happened to their hero, an investigation lead them to some extra ordinary results.

Searching For Sugar Man is a story that had to be told.In an era when many young musicians  are wrapped in cotton wool to protect them, forced to give up individual  style, creativity , originality for a quick route to the top. In return musical fascist  Simon Cowell rips your soul away for a predictable generic sound, manufactured to find your 15 minutes of fame, would you ever see James Arthur, JLS or no direction have they stepped into a smokey old bar or an aggressive working mans club? They probably look at you with such disdain. Say it to Rodriguez and many of the artists of the same generation these clubs are the heart and soul of music, you learned your trade their, experienced heartache most off be spotted there.

Searching for Sugar Man may not be telling us the whole story nor is it leaving you what your hearing is fabrication. The director Malik Bendjelloul decides to deliver the mystery card most of Rodriguez life with solely concentrating on the impact his album Cold Fact had on South Africa. 2012 has been the year of the documentary which this film earning its cinematic stripes staying away from the typical musical doc constraints for something a little more in depth, impact delivering the mystery by following the investigation of South African journalist Craig Bartholomew  and record shop owner Stephen 'Sugar' Segerman, as they try to piece to piece together one of music's great 'unsolved' Rock N Roll Suicides. With the search beginning only 15 years ago in 1997 you would think things would be a little easier however this was pre internet boom era the world wide web was in it's infancy with access to the internet limited to a privilege few making this out come even more fascinating.

My only gripe with Searching For the Sugar Man was the trail of the financial benefits that should have bestowed Rodriguez was cut rather too soon for my liking. However as you watch on the trail we did take hit a brick wall when all paths seem to lead to former Mowtown Executive Clarence  Avant who clearly becomes very aggressive when questioned leading to thoughts Rodriguez  talent was exploited for other persons financial gains. So why doesn't Rodriguez not care? When we finally meet him we see why, he's a modest man, a man of basic needs despite his appearance and sometimes a persona of a old rock star but deep downa man living a solitude life.Politically we hear that Rodriguez is a man of the people, working class street man it's this that suggests where the 'better than Dylan' line may come into force but also as his views politically not of American way you might think this might have cost him. If he did reap those lost financial rewards he would have shared the wealth with his loved ones just like he did with the South African ones.

Searching For the Sugar Man may not totally answer those burning questions fully but still what we get is fulfilling  compelling and captivating. In a age when new musicians surrender musical freedom and integrity to be pushed directly limeight for their 15 minutes of fame unprepared for the pitfall's of the industry Searching For The Sugar Man is a stark reminder of a story that will never happen again in music so its a magical story that must be told for generations to come.

Paul Devine

★★★★★

UK Rating: 15
DVD/BD Release Date: 27th December 2012 (UK)
Directed by: Malik Bendjelloul
Cast: Rodriguez, Clarence Avant
Buy Searching For Sugarman: [Blu-ray] or [DVD]

Searching For Sugar Man Review

★★★★★

Music documentaries are a curious sub-genre often set aside for obsessive completist fans and celebrity voyeurs but in recent years they’ve been going undergoing something of a renaissance. Big name film-makers have made big biographical pictures about world renowned stars with Scorsese adding George Harrison to his list of subjects as well as fans of Bob Marley and Paul Simon rushing to their nearest multiplex. There have also been films about lesser known artists whose stories are remarkable enough to hold our attention; DIG told the story of the rivalry and escalating violence between Portland’s Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre while The Devil and Daniel Johnson focussed on the distinctive artist’s battle with mental illness and rise to prominent cult success.

It is this second group into which Searching for Sugar Man firmly falls, coming from first time feature Director Malik Bendjelloul and featuring as it’s protagonist a true unknown, it tells a story that is unlikely to be repeated.

The Sugar Man is Rodriguez – a Hispanic singer/ songwriter hailing from Detroit who recorded two LP’s in the early 70’s that swiftly sank without a trace. Leading the search is Steve Segerman, a record store owner, Rodriguez fanatic and resident of South Africa. To understand how and why it is this record store owner a continent away feels so strongly about this forgotten artist he feels compelled to lead the search we must travel back to the recording of those two albums. And travel back we do, talking heads from all involved in the recording of Cold Fact and Coming From Reality regale tales of Rodriguez’s discovery, the belief they had in the album, their utter conviction that it would make Sixto Rodriguez as big a musician as anyone around. The producers involved were already making records for the likes of Marvyn Gaye and Stevie Wonder and yet they go on record to say that is was Cold Fact that they see as their masterpiece. All pretty strong stuff, rose tinted nostalgia perhaps? As it turns out, their belief was completely merited. The music of Rodriguez is fully deserving of the praise heaped upon it yet the excessive proclamations by some speaking (one is on the verge of tears) seems a little trite knowing the fate of their musical genius. They are right about the music though – a cross between a number of important sounds of the era with elements of Bob Dylan Cat Stevens - that make it an even greater surprise that he failed to sell at all in America. This however is far from being the only surprise in the life of Rodriguez, one that makes for a gripping documentary.

Against all odds and circumstance, a copy of his first LP Cold Fact winds up in Apartheid South Africa where his songs of struggle and liberty instantly strike a chord with the liberal anti-apartheid movement soon becoming the biggest album of it’s day. It makes Rodriguez a nationwide star bigger than Elvis and the Rolling Stones with its lead track Sugar Man a bone fide hit and lending itself not only to the title but the nickname of our guide through the story Steve ‘Sugarman’ Segerman. He, like many others in the country knew nothing more of Rodriguez than the information they had on the record – a picture and three possible names (as well as Rodriguez he was credited under Jesus Rodriguez and Sixto Rodriguez). The cultural boycott imposed on their segregated nation meant it was difficult to receive any information about new overseas acts and, little-known to them, the rest of the world hadn’t taken to Rodriguez in equally overwhelming fashion meaning there was little information to be found on their elusive hero.

The tongues of Capetown’s muso’s started to wag and what the ears heard made for gruesome listening. Urban legends started to emerge, ranging from a grizzly onstage suicide to a drug overdose but all with the same outcome – Rodriguez was dead. Decades pass, South Africa becomes a liberated nation and yet still Steve Segerman can find nothing to satisfy his unanswered questions about Rodriguez – the labels have long since shut down and not having remained in the music world for long little was known about him after those recordings. He enlists a fellow enthusiast and music detective Craig Bartholemew and the two set about tracing down a conclusive answer to the mystery surrounding Sixto’s disappearance.

What they discovered on their journey makes Bendjelloul’s film one of the most surprising and incredibly positive stories of the year, one that we are unlikely to see happen again. Bendjelloul comes from a background making 30 minute TV documentaries in his native Sweden but his step up to feature length films is seamless. There’s a cinematic quality to a number of scenes that belies the young Swede’s relative newcomer status to the medium. With the narrative he creates he becomes almost like a magician saving each reveal for maximum effect that enables you to enjoy this film regardless if you know the story or not, that said coming to this film with no knowledge at all is surely the most rewarding.

On top of an incredibly well crafted film is the music and life of Rodriguez himself – a man who was discovered with his back to the audience, establishing almost instantly the heir of mystique that carries through his life while simultaneously distancing himself from the rest of the world. This remarkable film and the strength of Rodriguez’s music will surely serve to ensure that distance doesn’t remain as big.

Matthew Walsh

UK Rating: 15
Release Date: 26 July 2012
Directed by: Malik Bendjelloul
Cast: Rodriguez

Searching For Sugar Man Interview - Malik Bendjelloul

There’s an engaging enthusiasm about Malik Bendjelloul that seems so apparent that it almost comes as a bit of a surprise to hear something negative from him, “I don’t really like music documentaries.” It’s even more curious considering the young Swede is the Director behind the music documentary of the year. The Mediterranean looking Scandinavian sees himself primarily as a storyteller and it was the strength of the story at the centre of his debut feature Searching for Sugar Man that took him from obscurity to being the toast of Sundance where his film picked up two awards and became the first film bought at the festival. He may even have resurrected the career of a forgotten great of 70’s rock in the process.

Rodriguez is the greatest rock icon you’ve never heard and the subject of Malik Bendjelloul’s film. Far from being a bloated tale of the success and excess of an established household name squeezing the last drops of ‘unseen footage’ out of a tired story and onto a fanboy audience, the secrecy that surrounds Rodriguez is the films appeal and the feature would never have come to light had Bendjelloul not chanced on an incredible story while in South Africa. “I had spent six months travelling around Africa looking for a story.” He explains, “Then I heard this one and it was like, wow! That’s the best story I’ve ever heard!”

Told to him by a record store owner and Rodriguez enthusiast Stephen Segerman, he heard the remarkable story of the enigmatic musician – a Detroit resident where he worked as a labourer in construction. Discovered by well established producers (at the time working with the likes of Marvyn Gaye and Stevie Wonder) Rodriguez recorded and released two albums, Cold fact in 1970 and Coming From Reality the following year. Those involved in the process were convinced of its brilliance, believing Cold Fact to be the masterpiece of their collective careers. Big things were promised to Rodriguez but none were to materialise and he soon sank without a trace, selling little to nothing in America. Nothing remarkable there – for every band that makes it there’s a thousand cutting their losses playing weddings and pubs across the world - but it’s the second stage of this mythical career where things take a turn for the sensational.

Somehow a bootleg copy of Cold Fact found its way to Apartheid-era South Africa, laying roots for unprecedented success ensuring Rodriguez became bigger than the likes of Elvis Pressley and The Rolling Stones. Due to the cultural boycott on South Africa and their cocooned lifestyle in their cut-off country, little was known of Rodriguez and reports of a grotesque onstage suicide began to emerge, “He was as dead and as famous as Jimi Hendrix” as Bendjelloul puts it. Segerman and fellow muso Craig Bartholomew set out to discover more about their elusive, much loved and presumed dead hero and hearing their tale, the storyteller instinct in Malik Bendjelloul knew he had his film. “If you have a wonderful story, people are happy to hear it. The more times your jaw drops when you hear a story the better it is this one my jaw was dropping all the time.”

Leaving South Africa enthralled and determined to start making what was initially to be a half hour TV documentary to be shown in his native Sweden, Bendjelloul became hesitant about listening to Rodriguez “It couldn’t possibly live up to my love for the story but I listened and it was great, some of the most beautiful songs ever to be on record I think. The superlatives work.” And in South Africa especially, there are certainly superlatives abound when it comes to Rodriguez. “He is considered better and as popular as Dylan and The Doors, these are rock Gods, he is not just a popular guy, no, and he is the one.”

It was after hearing the records that the Bendjelluol too became convinced and knew he had enough to transform the 30 minute TV piece into his first feature length film, succeeding in unearthing a musical great.

Rodriguez’s music sounds so encased in the time, so much like other important voices of the time that his disappearance into obscurity becomes hard to comprehend. “That is the real mystery” agrees Bendjelloul, “it isn’t why is he big in South Africa but why isn’t he big in America.”

His film touches on the parallels in these cross-continent countries that acted in opposite ways to determine Rodriguez’s career trajectory. Unknown too many outside the bubble of Apartheid South Africa, there was a strong white liberal counter-movement that opposed the divided regime and this is where Rodriguez’s songs of struggle first found an audience.

“Rodriguez sang ‘the system’s gonna fall soon to an angry young tune’ almost aiming at musicians saying ‘you can do stuff about this’ and they did – the first movement was white guys picking up guitars and singing songs against Apartheid and they all said Rodriguez was the guide for that so he was kind of changing a country without even knowing where he was aiming!”

America too was undergoing a Civil Rights movement but here in his native country, Rodriguez was unable to find an audience and while mainstream America had found room for white and black artists it still struggled to accept any blurred lines. “If you had a Mexican name like Rodriguez you should be doing Mexican music, mariachi or something. He was seriously challenging the white rock scene and at that time in the US that was a road you weren’t allowed to go down.” His Latino name was unlikely to break into mainstream commercial radio in America and crucially that determined his US fate. It’s a fate that Bendjelloul is understandably optimistic will be viewed far differently now, “Hopefully the music is going to be re-evaluated and becomes something that people know of, one of those stories that everybody knows of because it’s one of the great artists of the 70’s, he really is. He’s never played to more than 300 people in the U.S now he’s going to be a legend there”. And as proof, if needed, he adds “he’s playing Letterman next week!”.

Perhaps there are similar redemptive qualities to Bendjelloul own story making this film. Turned away from all financiers he had to go it alone, working for 5 years on an all consuming debut film. “I never got a cent so all these things – original score, animation, editing – I did on my kitchen table. I wanted to, otherwise it’d never be finished. All the funding dropped out, it was a mess, it was horrible. I fought for 4 years to make this the way I wanted it.” When he finally received help from Man on Wire producers Simon Chinn and John Battsek, it was his D.I.Y process that surprisingly they were keen to keep with the majority coming from circumstance “the idea was to have a lot of that (animation and landscape shots) since he wasn’t famous so there was no footage and his family didn’t have a video camera there was nothing really to start with.”

Far from being bruised by the exhaustive process, Bendjelloul remains characteristically upbeat and adamant that should be as little studio collaboration as possible to truly tell your story, “It is nice to have friends and be able to talk to someone, maybe I should but there’s something very nice about it on your own, you have your kitchen table and you do the whole thing and you do it your way, everything you want. Also that’s why you do a film, otherwise you can work somewhere for someone and get a salary but this way you don’t get any money or anything but what you do get is the feeling that this is your baby.”

So can B too claim a small victory against the bigger industry giant? “Yeah it’s fantastic, it’s insane. There are so many people opposed to you who almost try and make it not happen and now it’s opening in over 100 cities in the US and sold in 25 countries.” After such staggering success it’s not surprising that the idea of travelling the world once more for another story sounds appealing “Maybe I will, it’s a very pleasurable way of research.” As it turns out, it’s also an incredibly effective one.

Searching For The Sugar Man will be released in UK&Ireland by Studio Canal July 26th.

Matthew Walsh