The project came about as a result of the American musician Ry Cooder's lifelong passion for Cuban music, which in 1996 bore fruit as an extraordinary worldwide hit recording that rescued the members of this exclusive "club" -- many of whom were in their 70s, 80s, and 90s -- from total obscurity. Cooder has been an advisor on film projects with Wenders for more than 20 years on such films as Paris, Texas. But nothing in their previous collaborations could have prepared us for this.
During their work together on Wenders' most recent film, The End of Violence, Wenders spent countless hours listening to the stories Cooder told him about these extraordinary musicians and to the ecstatic music Cooder had recorded, and he begged his friend to let him return to Cuba with him on his next trip.
The first opportunity came two years later in 1998, when Cooder returned to Havana to record a solo album with the great singer Ibrahim Ferrer. At the time, Ferrer was a street singer who made his living primarily by shining shoes. The music featured here is folk music in the truest sense in that it emerges directly from the lives of the people who perform it. The songs speak with awe-inspiring simplicity and honesty of hearts that blossom with love and the sorrow of love gone wrong.
These are songs too that are deepened by the lines in the singers' faces, which Wenders' camera captures with such remarkable sensitivity. To tell the full story of this music, Wenders and his crew not only watch as these masters lay down the tracks during their recording sessions, and as they perform together onstage before their transfixed fans, they also follow the musicians -- most notably Omara Portuondo, known as the Edith Piaf of Cuba -- back to the neighborhoods where they grew up, back to the street corners and crowded apartments where they first learned the music as children at their father's knee.
Nothing in Wenders' earlier movies equals the emotional richness on display here. There are musical epiphanies in abundance, too many to enumerate. The depth of feeling -- for example, the moment at the end of the duet between Ferrer and Portuondo in "Dos Gardenias," when the 70-year-old Ferrer wipes a tear from the eyes of Portuondo -- is profound. During one scene, Ibrahim Ferrer proudly takes us on a tour of his modest apartment, pausing to give special attention to the Madonna he maintains in a shrine on a shelf in a corner of his sitting room. As part of the offering, he leaves a small glass of rum, which he knows she must appreciate because of how much he likes it.
Many of the musicians are unsurpassed in their field, nearly to the point of being living legends. Compay Segundo, for example, grew up in Santiago, and by the 1920s, he was accomplished both on the traditional guitar and its Cuban variation, the tres; he worked in tobacco fields and as a barber to sustain himself. By the age of 20, Compay Segundo had joined the Municipal Band of Santiago as a clarinetist. He also invented a seven-string instrument, the "armonico," which combined the characteristics of the guitar and the tres.
Nearly every musician has a story of this sort to tell. Many have been forced to abandon their professional careers. Ruben Gonzalez is considered a legendary figure at the piano; Cooder refers to him as "the greatest piano soloist I have ever heard in my life." However, for nearly a decade before making Buena Vista Social Club, Ruben did not even have a piano.
And if the personal stories and the music weren't enough to carry the film, the skill with which Wenders and his cinematographers convey the richness and vibrancy of Cuban street life almost causes us to forget we're watching a documentary. Just to see these musicians take the stage at Carnegie Hall is a sublime moment. Both personally and professionally, it represents a natural culmination, even a sort of vindication, for every member of the group. On an entirely different level, though, the shots of the musicians wandering the streets of Manhattan, window-shopping and looking out over the city from the top of the Empire State Building, are just as powerful. Wenders has already made two films about angels, and, at times, Buena Vista Social Club almost qualifies as a third. Or perhaps that's just another way of saying that it's heavenly.
