Buena Vista Social Club: Adios
“Buena Vista Social Club: Adios” feels less like its own movie than a collection of film snippets swept off the cutting room floor.
The charming players from the 1999 documentary “Buena Vista Social Club” are included, with new backgrounds, storytelling and context. But a dramatic narrative of its own never takes hold. “Adios” is a film for people who have memorized the first film and 1997 album, and simply crave more.
The Buena Vista Social Club was a group of Cuban musicians who performed in the thriving 1940s and 1950s Havana music and dance club by the same name. When American guitar player Ry Cooder, Cuban bandleader Juan de Marcos Gonzalez and filmmakers arrived, they found the group alive and still capable performers. The comeback album and movie by Wim Wenders was a history lesson and triumph of artistic spirit.
“Buena Vista Social Club: Adios” goes backward and forward, gathering more background from the key characters from the first documentary, and discovering how the fame changed their lives. Huge crowds appeared after the album was recorded, and the movie was nominated for an Academy Award.
The oldest member of the group, Compay Segundo, performed until days before his death at 95 in 2003. Keyboard player Ruben Gonzalez is shown being led to the piano and remembering the notes, even as he appears to have dementia. “So many friends have passed away,” he says, before his death in 2003. “I will play my last note in the grave.”
The new documentary is strongest when everyone is alive and it focuses on the immediate aftermath of the 1999 movie. It’s interesting to see Ibrahim Ferrer, one of the more youthful and charismatic members of the group, lamenting that his greatest fame arrived when he was old, needed a cane and his voice was no longer near its prime.
And yet “Buena Vista Social Club: Adios” shares little of the seemingly effortless grace of the musicians it covers.
The filmmakers, including director Lucy Walker, never shape the footage into a strong dramatic arc, even as the musicians start dying in the last third of the film. Scenes are often inserted because of a good quip or visual, without adding to a greater theme. Sequences feature interviews that jump through time and geographic location, so it’s often unclear to the audience when and where the conversations are taking place.
“I mean, look, I’m 93,” Segundo says in an early 2000s interview. “Sure it’s a little late, but the flowers of life come to everyone sooner or later. … That’s why you have to pay attention when the flowers arrive.”
It’s a beautiful sentiment. But for those who already watched “Buena Vista Social Club,” it’s hard not to think that same message came across even better the first time.