June 12. 2013
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Page 11
P hoto
by S ony
P ictures C lassics
ine documentary Searching for Sugar Man' is about a 1970s musician known as Rodriguez whose career gets lost in a dominant culture.
An Audienceat Last
D arleen O rtega
My favorite documentary of 2012 (which
also won the Oscar for Best Documentary)
has been justly lauded for its wonderful
music and its unique and moving underdog
story. I loved all of those things too. But for
those who care to notice, the film also con
tains some important wisdom about outsider
voices, and some important encouragement
for those who feel themselves to be outsid
ers.
If you don't know anything about this
movie and are willing to trust me on this, my
best advice is to watch it first and read my
comments later. It's best enjoyed as I en
joyed it the first time -genuinely in suspense
as the film unfolds a decades-long inquiry
into what happened to a Mexican-American
singer who recorded two absolutely excel
lent albums in 1970 and 1971 and then disap
by
peared into obscurity when nobody bought
them. Still, even if you read this appreciation
or otherwise think you know the story from
news accounts, you will nevertheless find
surprises in this heartfelt film.
Director Malik Bendjelloul wisely opens
the film with the admiring recollections of the
men who produced those two albums, all of
whom worked with some of the biggest names
in Motown history and all of whom rank
those albums among the very best ones they
ever produced. Their enthusiasm for the
artist who made them, the enigmatic Sixto
Rodriguez, is palpable, and they narrate with
genuine wonder their experiences in watch
ing him perform in smoke-filled clubs with his
back to the audience. All are baffled as to
why those brilliant albums, marked by
Rodriguez's poetic, stirring lyrics, didn’t find
an audience. One certainly can't fault their
Encouragement
for those who feel
they are outsiders
O pinionated
J udge
production; the albums (again available) hold
up very well 40 years later. These men build
up a sense of intrigue about this artist who
you've never heard of.
What happened next could only have
happened in the world before the Internet.
Somehow a bootleg copy of Rodriguez's first
album, "Cold Fact," found its way to South
Africa, where it became hugely popular be
fore the end of apartheid. In that repressive
era, Rodriguez's skillful and soulful lyrics
introduced a generation of young Afrikaners
to the concepts of being "anti-establish
ment," o f questioning authority and reflect-
IO J l IM.I
D arleen O rtega
X
*
ing on the meaning of personal freedom.
"Cold Fact" eventually sold an estimated
half-million copies in that small country and
was one of three albums one would find in
any young Afrikaners' collection (along with
the Beatles' "Abbey Road" and Simon and
Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water").
Strangely, though, no one in South Africa
knew anything about Rodriguez himself.
Rumors spread that he had killed himself on
stage in some dramatic fashion, by shooting
himself or setting himself on fire. Eventually,
continued
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on page 17