Searching for Sugar Man: movie review

( PG-13 ) ( Monitor Movie Guide )

'Sugar,' the story of the search for a musician whose career is resurrected, is a real-life fairy tale with a happy ending.

|
Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Singer-songwriter Rodriguez comes back into the spotlight in the documentary 'Searching for Sugar Man.'

The elusive American singer-songwriter named Rodriguez, the subject of Malik Bendjelloul's Sundance favored documentary "Searching for Sugar Man," recorded two cultishly acclaimed albums in the early 1970s that went nowhere, whereupon he left the music scene.

Unbeknown to him, his recordings found their way to South Africa, where his lilting, frequently banned anthems about social and political injustice found an appreciative audience of mostly young, white anti-apartheid activists. Because Rodriguez, who was bigger than Elvis there, was such a nowhere man, most assumed he was dead. (Sadly, he received no income from his South African stardom.) It's a scenario that could only have arisen in the pre-Internet era.

In fact, Rodriguez had been living in the same rundown Detroit neighborhood where he started out – his Mexican father had come to Detroit to work in the auto industry – and made his living in construction while raising three daughters. He even once ran for mayor of Detroit.

"Searching for Sugar Man" is about how Bendjelloul and a number of devoted fans reclaimed Rodriguez, at age 70 and serenely humble, and resurrected his career – which, partly as a result of this film, is once again in full swing, with a national tour this summer and a newly remastered CD from Sony's Legacy label of songs recorded more than 40 years ago. Better late than never. This is a real-life fairy tale with a remarkably happy ending. Grade: B+ (Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and some drug references.)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Searching for Sugar Man: movie review
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2012/0727/Searching-for-Sugar-Man-movie-review
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe