Searching for Sugar Man

Music documentaries can be really boring. Some drummer’s drug problems are really not all that interesting. Conflicts between the singer and guitarist can’t sustain our attention for all too long either. Searching for Sugar Man, on the other hand, is gripping from beginning to end. Malik Bendjelloul is not at his most critical here. We’re actually secretly convinced that the Swede has intentionally held back some information or keeps things vague because it suits him to have his subject veiled in mystery. But we take our hats off to his skill: Searching for Sugar Man is well narrated and ridiculously exciting for a documentary about an unknown musician. In the early 1970s, Sixto Rodriguez from Detroit released two albums. Despite good reviews, absolutely nobody was interested in Cold Fact and Coming from Reality. Exit Sixto. That’s what everyone thought. That’s what he thought. So why, forty years later, do we have this documentary and, perhaps even more importantly, a rerelease of his albums?

His music was kept alive in South Africa, where his fine protest songs hit a sensitive chord with young people opposed to the Apartheid regime. Without knowing it, Sixto Rodriguez became a hero of the underground scene there. The fact that he never gave any signs of life reinforced his legend. Rumours circulated that he had shot himself during a concert. We won’t give anything else away.

Searching for Sugar Man ●●●
SE, 2012, dir.: Malik Bendjelloul, 85 min.