“Sugar man met a false friend On a lonely dusty road Lost my heart when I found it It had turned to dead black coal”

- Sugar Man Cold Fact Album 1971

Searching For Sugar Man. There are few stories that will affect you quite the way this one will. It speaks to the heart. The music and lyrics will lift your spirit much the way they inspired a nation to start a revolution that would lead to the end apartheid in South Africa. The movie is visually stunning. Shot in 8mm, it follows the journey of Sugar Man’s music from Detroit to South Africa and back. Sugar Man also known as Sixto Rodriguez is a real man, a musician, and a mystic. Searching For Sugar Man first caught the attention of the film world at Sundance (2012) where it won the Audience Award and the Special Jury Prize. It also won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary (2013) and the Oscar for Best Doc at the 85th Academy Awards among many other awards. The story behind making the film is remarkable as well.

Searching For Sugar Man is not only a moving story with a beautiful soundtrack it is a film about the power of music to effect change, both personal and social. The music was recorded by Rodriquez in the 1970’s and has the most unusual lyrical quality. Although recorded in the US with little commercial success, the music was picked up and spread by word of mouth in South Africa, subsequently becoming the heartbeat of a nation. Ironically, the musician had never been there. He was a mystery man rumored to have committed suicide by of all things, self-immolation during a performance. Could this be true? It became part of the Rodriquez legend until the search for an answer to this question is told through the lens of filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul, and follows two men, Stephen ‘Sugar’ Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom from Cape Town, South Africa in their quest to find out what happened to Rodriquez.

Malik Bendjelloul was determined to make this movie. He made it with scarce funding using an 8mm camera to record the very stylized footage that makes the film so distinct. Unfortunately, he ran out of money before he could complete the movie. Resourceful though, he discovered an iPhone app ‘8mm Vintage Camera’ and he then used his iPhone using this app to complete the film. The film and its auteur have been single handedly responsible for reintroducing Rodriquez’ music to the world. The album climbed to No. 3 in Sweden in 2013, No. 18 in Denmark and #24 in New Zealand and stayed on the charts for 26 weeks after the Academy Award win.

How could some 25 plus years pass by and this music have more resonance and popularity than Elvis or the Beatles in South Africa and barely make a dent in America? Bewildering for the South Africans where a generation still effortlessly recites Rodriguez’ lyrics, it raises interesting questions about how popular music is promoted and distributed in America. Rodriguez did not commit suicide and much of the drama of the film turns on the search and discovery of its protagonists with an astonishing result. Soulful, deeply moving and politically engaging, this film is a rare gem and a must see.

Moira Romano

PS. Searching for Sugar Man is available on Netflix.

Tracks on Searching For Sugar Man come from the albums Cold Fact and Coming From Reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKYEYNX-Eug

http://sugarman.org/coldlyrics.html