Searching for Sugar Man

A couple of times a year, a documentary feature will break through from the restraints of modern, multiplex, big budget cinema and find a way onto our screens. Generally though, because of availability, documentaries find a home on DVD and this is the medium in which I saw Searching for Sugar Man, the latest documentary to win an Oscar. It was precisely lack of availability which meant I had to wait so long to see the film but now I have, I can join in with the many who rate it so highly. Directed by first timer Malik Bendjelloul and produced by Simon Chinn, the producer of the heart-pounding Man on Wire, Searching for Sugar Man is a seemingly implausible tale of the search for a forgotten musician.

Sixto Rodriguez was a man who released two folk-rock albums in the early 1970s and then disappeared. The albums bombed in the US and Rodriguez’s label estimated, somewhat mean spiritedly, that his records sold around six copies. The rumour was that the singer had committed suicide on stage after the failure of his music career but what he could have never known was that he was huge in Apartheid era South Africa. Although the South Africans knew little to nothing about the singer, to them he was as popular as Elvis or The Beatles and a South African journalist set out in the mid 1990s to discover what exactly did happen to the mysterious singer.

I want to try and avoid spoilers here but still recommend that if you haven’t seen the movie; you do so before you read this or any other review. Unfortunately because I read so many reviews and listen to as many podcasts as I do; I already had a reasonable understanding of the story before seeing the film. Despite this I was still swept away with the tale and found it increasingly unbelievable the more I saw. The film reminded me a little of Catfish in that I was never sure if I was being ‘had’. I just couldn’t believe that a man who was so popular in South Africa could have just disappeared without a trace. In addition to this, Rodriguez’s music is extraordinary and I just didn’t buy the fact that he wasn’t known outside South Africa. How could he not be? The film uses tracks from Rodriguez’s two albums for its soundtrack and I loved every single song I heard. The story is remarkable and sadly it’s the sort of story we’ll get less and less of in an ever more connected world. It’s no coincidence that the stories from two of last year’s standout documentaries (Sugar Man and The Imposter) would be much more unlikely to have happened in the twenty-first century.

The film is put together in an assured and tantalising way. It introduces the man and his music and goes back and forth from Detroit to Cape Town to hear from those who knew and/or were influenced by the singer. The movie builds to a crescendo which I found incredibly tense, even though I knew what it was building to. Following the reveal the movie changes tact a little and goes from mystery and discovery to recognition and I felt this change was justified. The film makes use of what little archive footage there is but also creates footage through super 8mm style cinematography and some absolutely wonderful animated sequences. These were spliced into modern footage of Detroit to create some very visually appealing scenes. The animation itself was reminiscent of a modern graphic novel and had shades of Gorillaz about it.

Despite my overall enjoyment, I have just a couple of problems with the film. The first is that I felt that the record label people got off easily when confronted about what happened to the money. With estimates of 500,000 records sold in South Africa, the movie rightly brings up the question of what happened to the royalties but after a couple of interviews and tough questions, this thread is left with an unsatisfactory conclusion. A second problem is something that I only encountered after watching the film and that is that Rodriguez was also big in Australia, something which isn’t even mentioned in the film. Not only was he aware of this but he actually performed there. I understand why this fact was ignored but it feels a little as though the film makers are making a fairy tale out of a story which in reality isn’t one.

Despite this sizable problem I really enjoyed Searching for Sugar Man. Its story is compelling and engrossing and it made me want to find out more about the man and his music. It’s also done something similar to what Anvil: The Story of Anvil did and that is to shine light on a forgotten musician whose talents deserve to be recognised, whether he is alive or dead.   

8/10