Buena Vista Social Club at 25: Wim Wenders’ Glorious Musical Salute

The performances bounce back-and-forth between the recording of the songs, and live performances of those songs during a show in Amsterdam. Wenders practically twirls around the musicians with his camera, literally getting swept up in the romantic, collaborative beauty being created. In the first 15 minutes, we get an instant hit of that when vocalists Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo record a dreamy rendition of “Chan Chan.” It’s even more moving when they perform the song live, as Ferrer and Portuondo, who is crying by the end of this, do a lovely slow dance during the bridge.

Buena Vista Social Club is less a historical chronicle of the titular club and more of a musical hangout movie. Wenders gives these once-aspiring musicians their long-overdue time to shine. Between the recording and live performing, Wenders has each one performing in an isolated location—a stockyard, a banquet hall, the street—literally providing a space for them to do their magic.

It’s during these moments that we get to know who these people are and where they came from. There’s Francisco Repilado—also known as Compay Segundo—a suave, sharp-dressed vocalist/tres player who used to light up his grandmother’s cigars when he was a lad. (“So I guess you could say I’ve been smoking for 85 years,” he says, laughing.) There’s Eliades Ochoa Bustamante, a cowboy hat-wearing country boy who came from a family full of guitar players. There’s Rubén González, a pianist we also catch performing for a group of kid ballerinas. These cats discuss how they started their musical journey at a young age, getting the itch to perform before they hit their preteens, sometimes playing on the street for change. They also delve into what they had to do when music wasn’t supporting them or their family. Ferrer, whom Cooder describes as “a Cuban Nat King Cole,” did everything from shine shoes to move trash to sell lottery tickets. 

Wenders gives these former nobodies the triumphant, feel-good happy ending they deserve when they touch down in New York to perform at Carnegie Hall for the movie’s big finale. Before they blow the roof off Carnegie, Wenders trails the members as they walk around the Big Apple, still amazed that the music they’ve been quietly playing for so long (many of them were in their 90s by this point) has taken them so far and is now being heard all over the world. Several of them even went on to release solo albums after this, getting a brief taste of success and stardom before they would pass away just a few years later. 

Just like the album, Buena Vista Social Club was a beloved hit, grossing $23 million and appearing on many critics’ year-end top-ten lists. It was also nominated for a Best Documentary Feature Oscar. You could say Wenders’ doc opened the floodgates for more docs about Latin music (like Calle 54 or La Tropical) and forgotten, underappreciated musicians who finally get their long-overdue flowers (like Standing in the Shadows of Motown or 20 Feet from Stardom). But what Buena Vista Social Club ultimately did was gloriously salute some musical artists from Cuba who, even in their golden years, still had songs in their hearts.

Craig D. Lindsey is a Houston-based writer. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @unclecrizzle.