Searching for Sugar Man
Directed by Malik Bendjelloul
Empire Theatre, 3980 Shelbourne Street

Reviewed by Lynne Van Luven

“Thank you for keeping me alive,” Sixto Diaz Rodriguez says to the ecstatic South African crowd.

The words capture a triumphal moment in the documentary Searching for Sugar Man. If you don’t manage to see it at the Empire Theatres this week, don’t mourn; it will be popping up again at Cinecenta on the University of Victoria campus.

Although the haunting snatches of Rodriguez’s song “Sugar Man” lured me to the theatre, the sharply told documentary soon captured my attention. Directed by Malik Bendjelloul, the Swedish/British film started making waves at Sundance earlier this year. It encapsulates the search by two of Rodriguez’ South African fans, Stephen “Sugar” Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, as they looked for the mysterious singer whose bootlegged album, they claimed, had provided “the soundtrack to our lives” and been such an important part of the anti-Apartheid struggle.

Everyone knows the facts now: Detroit-born Rodriguez, now 70, is a Mexican-American singer whose early promise – two albums, Cold Fact in 1970 and Coming from Reality in 1971 – never quite materialized. Apparently unbroken, he went on to live his life out of he spotlight: a BA in philosophy from Wayne State, lots of hard labour, fathering three daughters. Meanwhile, the rumours in South Africa were that he was dead by suicide or drug overdose.

Writing as Craig Bartholemew, here is how Strydom describes his search: “In 1996 I determined to find the man, dead or alive. After nine months, 72 telephone calls, 45 faxes, 142 e-mails, long nights reading through encyclopaedias, music books, dead ends, loose ends and fag ends I reached him. ‘Yes . . . it is I, Sixto [Seez- to] Rodriguez,’ said the voice on the other end of the telephone.”

As director, Bendjelloul focuses on the initial mystery and the fans’ search. In doing so, he elides much of Rodriquez’ personal story, including the singer’s career in regional politics, his local music career, his two visits to Australia, one of them touring with Midnight Oil, in order to tell the story from the South African perspective. But even though you are not getting the entire picture in Searching for Sugar Man, the movie keeps you entranced from beginning to end. And despite its title, it manages a feel-good ending without saccharine coating.