In short: Searching for Sugar Man (2012)

At the beginning of the 70s, Sixto Rodriguez made two good to great folk rock albums, only to disappear from the public stage (well, there was a late 70s/early 80s comeback in Australia, but the film at hand doesn’t mention it and probably genuinely doesn’t know about that part of the story). Unbeknownst to anyone in the US – certainly the artist – Rodriguez’ output became something of a key cultural artefact for the white anti-Apartheid counterculture in South Africa, with some of his songs being veritable black market hits.

Following the end of Apartheid – which also brought with it official versions of the records Rodriguez apparently saw as little money off as from the bootlegs because the record industry sucks – and a lot of pretty unbelievable rumours about Rodriguez’ death – “best” of them the one about him committing suicide on stage in front of an audience unappreciative of his music – some of the man’s South African fans start to dig into the case of their lost idol. Eventually, they not just find out where he lived – Detroit, which comes as little surprise given the Motown connection of his records – but also that he’s actually still alive (or was, as Rodriguez unfortunately died just this August). Which leads to a triumphant tour in South Africa.

There’s something special about Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man that doesn’t lie in its effectively used but still pretty standard music documentary format. Probably, this special quality has a lot to do with how it resonates with the Romantic in many a music lover, the way it portrays how music taken out of its original context can take on different, important, (personal) world-changing qualities in a different part of the world. There’s something at once hopeful and strange about this, art resonating in different ways as planned that are still sympathetic to its source.

It is doubly nice that this is one of the handful of films and stories about rediscovering a lost musician that end happily, even quietly triumphantly, with the artist not just being alive but also happy, not having recorded further music but having had what feels like a full and interesting life, and was still living it when this was shot.