Searching for Sugar Man (2012, documentary) or, The Search for Sixto Rodriguez

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The musician rests inside his guitar on this neat poster for Malik Bendjelloul's Searching for Sugar Man

 

Rodriguez is the artist name of an American singer-songwriter who released two records around 1970, which were not hits in his own country but in South Africa, where a myth developed around the man, who very few knew anything of.

 

The story of Sugar Man builds up slowly and is pretty anecdotic. At one point, around 50 minutes in, however, the story takes a sharp turn and seems to grow significantly: SPOILER Rodriguez is alive! And he turns out to be a fascinating, extremely humble man. The reception he enjoys on arrival in South Africa is touching.

Searching for Sugar Man doesn't clear up Sixto Rodriguez for us, which I suppose is alright, but it purports to present him with his fame in South Africa, - which he actually learned about in 1997/98. Another reservation of mine is about the title, which doesn't seem to have any relation to Rodriguez. The only Sugar Man of the story seems to be Stephen 'Sugar' Segerman, a South-African record store owner and fan of Rodriguez, who wrote one of the articles the film is based on. So it seems his name has been lifted to the film's title simply because it rings well. The film is also based on an article by Craig Bartholomew Strydom. It is the only film by Swedish Malik Bendjelloul, who committed suicide in May 2014 by jumping in front of a train, reportedly suffering from depression.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Reportedly 1 mil. $

Box office: 9.1 mil. $

= Huge hit

[Searching for Sugar Man premiered January 19 (Sundance) and runs 86 minutes. Bendjelloul quit his job in Swedish TV in 2006 and traveled to South Africa, where he found the story and began work on the documentary, which was funded through the Swedish Film Institute for the first two years. Filming took place in Detroit, Michigan, Los Angeles, California, London, England and in Cape Town, South Africa. As Bendjelloul ran out of money, he couldn't afford any more 8mm film and resorted to film parts of the film on his iPhone with the app 8mm Vintage Camera. The film opened #47 in 3 theaters to a 27k $ first weekend in North America, where it played an astounding 55 weeks, peaking in 157 theaters (at #22) and grossing 3.6 mil. $ (39.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Bendjelloul's native Sweden with 1.7 mil. $ (18.7 %) and Spain with 1 mil. $ (11 %). The film won the Best Documentary Oscar, - the first film partially shot on a smartphone to ever win an Oscar, - in front of Five Broken Cameras, The Gatekeepers, How to Survive a Plague and The Invisible War. It also won the corresponding BAFTA and scores of other awards and got a 4/4 rating from Roger Ebert. Searching for Sugar Man is certified fresh at 94 % with an 8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Searching for Sugar Man?