Searching for Sugar Man

Starring: Rodriguez, Stephen "Sugar" Segerman, Dennis Coffey, Steve Rowland, Clarence Avant, Rian Malan, Eva Rodriguez, Regan Rodriguez
Directed by: Malik Bendjelloul
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Documentary, Music
2012

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Two South Africans seek to find out the truth about Rodriguez, a mysterious American singer whose background was completely unknown in South Africa.

Review:

Tim: I generally enjoyed Searching for Sugar Man. This film, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, is well made. It tells an interesting story, informing us about an American musician most of us have never heard of. Like all good documentaries, it pulls us into the story and keeps us engaged in the subject matter. The movie has a few flaws, though, that I believe hurt it in fairly significant ways.

Let's start first with some of the positives. I'd never heard of Rodriguez before watching this film. The movie wisely gives us a lot of opportunity to hear various Rodriguez songs and they are surprisingly good. I'm not sure I'd download any of them per se, but I thoroughly enjoyed listening to them. He was clearly an incredible talent in the 1970s. His songs felt haunting, intelligent, contemplative, wise. That part of the film was excellent. It exposed me to a musician I knew nothing about and I genuinely enjoyed listening to his music. That's a big plus, a big reason why this movie is worth seeing.

Now, let me shift to a quick complaint. I felt like outside of exposing us to Rodriguez, the movie leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I still felt very unclear about what had happened with Rodriguez's music label. If he sold half a million records in South Africa, where did the money go? The movie asks this question but never really answers it. Did something illegal take place? Did Rodriguez actually get his money and the movie glosses over this? Was it just a totally bad but legal example of a record company screwing over the talent? We get a contentious interview with Clarence Avant (who seems like a sweetheart), but very few answers. I wish the movie spent more time trying to explain the deal here. It also felt like we never got a satisfactory answer to why Rodriguez wasn't bigger in the United States. We get a lot of hands throwing up, exasperation and bewilderment. Sure, but why? Was it a lack of promotion from the record company? When was his music released? Was it eclipsed by bigger drops? His music is really good and we don't get a satisfactory answer. I'm not suggesting one reason exists, but I wish the movie tried harder to understand.

The movie works hard to tell us the story of these South African fans trying to track down Rodriguez's life story. There's some exciting moments when they finally break through the mystery. This part of the film feels a bit overhyped, like some creative license was taken to make it seem more exciting. I suppose this kind of discovery was much more exciting and much harder to do in the 1990s than today. It feels a little quaint watching this discovery when Rodriguez wasn't exactly hiding himself. However, the search for Rodriguez does make interesting viewing. This leads me to another complaint- the film ignores facts that are true, but would make its story less powerful. Namely, the fact that Rodriguez toured successfully in Australia is never mentioned. You could argue that the film focuses on South Africa only, but realizing Rodriguez had success in Australia changes the nature of the story a bit. There's also some controversy about how important Rodriguez's music was to the anti-apartheid movement. I felt like director Malik Bendjelloul took a few too many liberties with the truth.

Now, this doesn't take away from the profile of Rodriguez as an amazingly talented musician whose success only landed outside of his native country. This is really where the film shines and it's where I enjoyed it the most. I'm not quite sure I would have given it the Academy Award for Best Documentary, but it is an enjoyment movie. Outside of a few of the flaws in how the story and facts were presented, Bendjelloul crafts an entertaining and informative film. It's a good movie, absolutely. It made me really appreciate Rodriguez and wish I was able to see him play at some point. That day has passed, but at least I was able to see and hear him here. That's a huge benefit of this film- preserving Rodriguez for future generations. It's really a tragedy that Bendjelloul committed suicide two years after this film was released- he was talented and he crafted an important movie here.

I enjoyed Searching for Sugar Man. I would have rated it even higher if it hadn't been for a few questions about what was included or not in the film. That doesn't mean this is an ineffective movie, it's really well done and it held my attention from start to finish. It's a flawed movie, but one I would absolutely recommend.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



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