Sixto Rodriguez, a little known American
folk-rock singer/songwriter in the tradition of
Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens, released two albums
in the early 1970s, Cold Fact, and Coming From
Reality but failed to achieve any popularity.
Though praised by critics, his haunting songs
about love and loss, drugs and politics, such as
"I Wonder," "Cause," and "Sugar Man" should have
been hits, but, for some reason, were not. After
a minor tour in Australia that brought neither
success nor recognition, he was dropped from his
record label and was not publicly heard from
again.
Winner of the Jury Prize and the Audience Award
at the Sundance Film Festival, Swedish filmmaker
Malik Bendjelloul's moving documentary Searching
for Sugar Man investigates the life of Rodriguez
who grew up in a run-down working class area of
Detroit, Michigan and worked mostly as a manual
laborer, singing at night in small, smoke-filled
bars. A friend who remembers him at the time
says, “There was something mysterious about him.
He looked like a drifter.” The film demonstrates
Rodriguez' striking presence using a mix of
songs, interviews with those who knew him or
knew about him, animation, and archival photos.
Though no one knows exactly how, his albums
somehow made their way to South Africa and
circulated among white Afrikaans musicians. All
of this led to a growing mystique about an
artist that no one knew anything about. Rumors
began to circulate that, during an unsuccessful
concert, he shot himself in the head or died
from a drug overdose, but no one knew for sure
how he died. The film begins when Cape
Town record shop owner and music fan Stephen
Segerman, whose nickname “Sugar Man” mirrors one
of Rodriguez' most famous songs, meets music
journalist Craig Bartholomew-Strydom and the two
undertake to investigate what had happened to
him.
We find out that his album Cold Fact was
distributed on a small South African label, that
one of his songs, Sugar Man, was banned on the
government-run radio station for its drug
references, and that the anti-establishment
lyrics of his songs such as The Establishment
Blues struck a responsive chord with the growing
student involvement in the anti-apartheid
movement, and led indirectly to the Afrikaner
protest musicians of the '80s. When Segerman and
Bartholomew begin their investigation to uncover
the mystery of Sixto Rodriguez, they take a cue
from Watergate and decide to “follow the money.”
As each layer is unpeeled, it only adds another
mystery.
Though his albums are said to have sold half a
million records, speculation is rife with
questions about what happened to the money and
an interview with, Clarence Avant, the boss of
Motown adds more heat than light. What the music
detectives eventually find is not only
surprising but extremely poignant, and it is
best for viewers to find this out for
themselves. The film is an odyssey of discovery,
even self-discovery, that is a profoundly
inspiring celebration of a man and his music.
More than just a film about music and musicians,
however, it is about the human condition. Though
it reveals its secrets slowly, when it hits you,
it is with an astonishing burst of power that
you can feel in your bones. Searching for Sugar
Man is one of the best films of the year.
