Kit's Film Thoughts

By Kit

It is true that Searching for Sugar Man is helped a lot by its subject, who is a fascinating man. But it should be said that even the wrong hands can render a fascinating subject irredeemably dull and that is not the case with Searching for Sugar Man. For example, anyone could tell the story of a man cheated out of fame and give us a list of his sorrows by doing a simple A&E biographical documentary but Malik Bendjelloul goes a different route, by telling us first of Rodriguez’s impact on South Africa then proceeding on the search for who this man was before, finally, giving us the man himself.

We are told the story not through the eyes of Rodriguez but through the eyes of South African whites, with whom he achieved massive popularity without his knowledge. Therefore, the movie can explore and raise questions about the nature of fame, success, rumors, and the power of music without doing so in a deliberate and obvious manner (except, maybe, the power of music part. That part is pretty obvious).

This makes it, at least to me, rather interesting. We are seeing fame through the eyes of the fans and, like the South African whites, are asking ourselves throughout the film “does he know about his fame?” and “Is he even alive?” So when we discover that he is indeed still alive, and we learn about his life since then, we, like his South Africans, want him to realize how much he was appreciated and loved by the fans whom he never knew existed. Which is why the concert scenes in South Africa are so amazing.

It is a fantastic documentary. It tells its story and it tells it well. It pulls us in and then delivers.


Searching For Sugar Man. Dir. Malik Bendjelloul. Prod. Chin, Simon. Canfield Pictures, 2012.