Gypsy Caravan: When the Road Bends (2006)

This fascinating, insightful and moving film does for the Roma what The Buena Vista Social Club did for the musicians of Cuba.In allowing the leading characters room to tell their own tales the director, Jasmine Dellal, gives us, the viewer, the opportunity to see into a culture which is at one and the same time foreign and similar. Foreign because of the history, traditions and music of the Roma people, similar because of the everyday problems faced by them, be they lack of money, poor housing, ignorance, fear etc - ie all the things that make all of us human.Out of this emerges some unforgettable characters, like Esma. Esma is the Queen of the Gypsies - officially apparently - and has a voice to die for, clear, soulful, and with more talent than a 1,000 X factor winners put together! Maharaja are an Indian ensemble which has fun playing up to the Bollywood imagery, whilst turning out some of the best Raga I've heard since the heydays of Ravi Shanker! Of course there are others, all of whom are allowed their space within the film, but the saddest has to be the violin maestro Nicolae Neacsu, an elderly man I would have been proud to have called uncle. For those who have not as yet seen the film I will not say what happens, but those who have must agree it is very moving.If there are any faults with the film it is these: Firstly, the relationship between the wider American society and the touring Roma could have been better explored - just one note left in an hotel reception guest book gives a chilling reminder of the ignorance still surrounding these people. Secondly, the film could have been 30 minutes longer and given us more of the concert footage. I guess I will just have to hunt out the soundtrack to hear all of the wonderful music from the film.

Chris Knipp has it exactly right in his comment above. "Latcho Drom" is one of the best films I've ever seen, the ultimate presentation of Rom music, and it's a crime that it is still not released on DVD. This clunker is almost embarrassingly bad. The producers of the "Caravan" rounded up a motley assortment of "gypsy" acts, some good, some awful, and made a cheapo roadshow with them. The camera work is amateurish, and the disrespect of beginning any performance only to cut away to jolly tour bus or village scenes is infuriating. The director had no sense of how to film music, taking either a flat view from audience front center, or extreme close-ups full of sweat rivulets and nostril hair (not that there's anything wrong with that!). The Spanish flamenco act is particularly cringe-worthy. When you've seen great film scenes of major flamenco talent, such as in the classic works of Carlos Saura, "Antonio" and his aunt Juana appear grotesquely clownish. Antonio performs like someone out of a "Spinal Tap" sort of parody, and his inarguably ugly aunt is presented as some sort of flamenco earth-mother, though her singing is less authentic than awful. The only redeeming moment comes at the end of the film when the audience is shocked and saddened at the unexpected death of one of the performers, and it really is painful to watch the friends' grief. Even then, on second thought, there's something cheesily exploitative about it all.

Funny how some comments on this film are only in the discussion section, as solo cries d'esprit. anyway... the one saying "tour de force" was certainly right, on the level of pure film-making this movie is dazzling. I was also really impressed with the way in which the director generally used the music as a springboard to continue the "narrative" in a way that was very consistently magical. A little more time was taken with some of the things that were most extraordinary, musically. I mean, compare this movie with something like buena vista social club... it can't be done this is so vasty superior a piece of work, let alone that its so much more ambitious, that the subject matter is really a lot richer and mined to so much greater um yield.

If you like Roma music (and if you don't I hope you can be reincarnated until you do; it'll be worth it) you'll love this brilliantly crafted documentary film (titled "Gypsy Caravan" in the version circulating in the U.S.). Director Jasmine Dellal and her two fine cinematographers, Alain de Halleux and Albert Maysles, go on a U.S. tour in 2002 with five of the very best Romani bands around. Their music is to die for. Here's a sketch of each group: "Fanfare Ciocarlia" is a 12 piece brass band from Zece Prajini, a NE Romanian village near the Moldavian border. Their music, sometimes referred to as "Balkan funk," blends Romanian, Roma, Turkish, Bulgarian, Serbian and even klezmer influences. They were featured in the recent German-Turkish hit drama, "Head On," and one of their numbers closes the comedy, "Borat.""Taraf de Haidouks" (it means band of brigands - or outlaws) hails from the Romanian village of Clejani, SW of Bucharest. The players are called lautari, meaning traditional (folk) musicians. They have played with Yehudi Menuhin and the Kronos Quartet. The actor Johnny Depp is a big fan, after working with them in the Sally Potter film, "The Man Who Died." He once flew them to his nightclub in LA and paid them $10K to perform (Depp talks about them in this film). Their leader for many years was Nicolai Neaucescu, a droll violin player who busked wherever he went. Ms. Dellal, who was present for this screening, tells a story about Nicolai when the tour was playing in Berkeley, and he went busking around town. One listener was so moved that he gave Nicolai his gold watch. I had the pleasure of seeing "Taraf" perform a few years ago at the Vancouver (B.C.) Folk Music Festival. Between gigs, Mr. Neaucescu circulated through the Jericho Beach park grounds playing for tips. In its 25 year history, no previous performer had ever busked at the VFMF. Festival staff couldn't for the life of them figure out if this was OK or not."Antonio El Pipa," a Gypsy Flamenco ensemble from Andalucia, Spain, is led by the dancer Antonio, who was born in Jerez de la Frontera. Performing with the group is his aunt, Tia Juana la del Pipa, whose raw, almost basso voice is as earthy as one can possibly imagine (think Tom Waits here)."Maharaja" (formerly Musafir) is a song and dance troupe from Rajasthan in NW India. The group is influenced by diverse traditions, including north Indian folk music, Arabic and Sufi. Their star is Sayari Sapera, a gorgeous young man who performs as a dazzlingly costumed female Sufi-style dancer.Esma Redžepova is probably the best known Rom performer in Europe. Her career spans over 40 years and 15,000 concerts, many of them benefits for her humanitarian aid projects. One of her most famous songs is featured in the recent comedy, "Borat" (she claims this was used without her permission - another among the rumored questionable dealings of the "Borat" filmmakers). Known as "Queen of the Gypsies," she hails from Skopje, Macedonia, though for most of her career she has lived in Belgrade. She sings with the Teodosievski ensemble, named for her late husband and the band's founder, Stevo Teodosievski. The couple adopted 47 boys over the years, raising them and teaching them music in particular. Esma, as she is simply known everywhere, has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize for her human rights work on behalf of Roma people, and she also received an award from UNICEF for her humanitarian activities.The music these groups create is sublimely exciting, amusing, and full of attitude. In the case of the eastern European groups, there is also more than a touch of what one might regard as a sort of blues idiom. The music is one of two wondrous elements in this film. The other is the superb way in which the film itself is built. Ms. Dellal blends concert footage with scenes of the musicians at leisure or dressing for performances. The musicians delight in getting to know each other.Ms. Dellal also visits the villages where these people come from. There are remarkable views of the musicians' homes and families, townspeople, buildings, farm animals, a camel pulling a cart through the street, countryside, you name it, in places like Jerez, Zece Prajini, rural Rajasthan and Clejani, where the indomitable Nicolai, while showing us his house, tells us he may build a pool there "like Johnny Depp's."The photography and editing - indeed all filmic production values - are first rate. This is quite a step up for Ms. Dellal from her 1999 film, "American Gypsy: A Stranger in Everybody's Land." That film featured some interesting characters but was not nearly as well made as "Caravan." For lovers of world music and cultural diversity, "Caravan" is a film you must not miss. (In Romani, Spanish, various North Indian dialects & English) My grades: 9/10 (A) (Seen at the NWFC's Reel Music series, 01/26/07)