I watched the movie Searching For Sugar man, which was made in an interview format, and wrote a movie review.

Sugar Man

Rodriguez’s song “Sugar Man” plays on the screen as a man tells us that his nickname is “Sugar”. Then the South African landscape unfolds. As the man sings along, he starts talking about Rodriguez. The American-born musician is one of the most popular musicians in South Africa, but compared to other singers, it’s not as easy to find the information you’re looking for. In South Africa, Rodriguez was a shrouded figure, with only rumors abounding about how he died.

Sixto Rodriguez

Rodriguez was one of the blue-collar workers in Detroit. He looked like any other laborer, but there was something about him that set him apart. He sang in a bar near Detroit’s waterfront. When producer Mike Theodore and record producer Dennis Coffey saw him strumming his guitar and singing in a thick cloud of cigarette smoke, with his back to the audience, they asked him to make an album with them. The first album, Cold Fact (1970), was a flop, despite its brilliant songs and lyrics that rivaled Bob Dylan’s at the time. His second album, Coming From Reality (1971), was also a failure, and like one of the lyrics on his album, Rodriguez was fired from his record label two weeks before Christmas, and just like that, he disappeared from the American music scene. His album sold only six copies in the United States.

Cape Town

Rodriguez’s first album, Cold Fact, didn’t catch on in the U.S., and it seemed like it would disappear from the world. But on the other side of the world, in Cape Town, South Africa, Rodriguez’s album was a huge hit, making him a million-selling musician on par with the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel. Steve “Sugar Man” Seger, a huge Rodriguez fan, had this to say about the album.

“There’s a song called Anti-Establishment Blues, and we didn’t know what it meant until he said the word “Anti-Establishment” in one of his songs, and then we realized: It’s okay to protest our society, it’s okay to be angry at our society, because that’s the society we live in.”

Rodriguez’s music was not just music to South Africans, but a message to them that they could use music to escape the oppressive and conservative South African government, and that they could use it to rebel against it and start a revolution. The political situation in South Africa made Rodriguez’s music even more popular, and it remained so for 40 years. For South Africans, Rodriguez was a hero, and people began to wonder about his identity.

Any musicologist detectives out there?

South Africans want to know more about Rodriguez, but all they can find is his picture on the album jacket, his name, Rodriguez, and the name of the record label. With such limited information, people only heard weird rumors about Rodriguez. Rumors like the bizarre one that he committed suicide onstage one night because he was frustrated with the venue and the sound system. Segerman, who wrote the booklet for the release of Rodriguez’s sophomore album, Coming From Reality, wrote one sentence on the booklet that stuck with him. “Any musicologist detectives out there?” This single sentence is what led to the formation of a group to find Rodriguez. Starting with small bits of information about the album, his record label, and Rodriguez’s lyrics, the detectives eventually learn that he lives in Detroit. Finally, they manage to get in touch with Rodriguez’s daughter and his producer, who confirm that Rodriguez still lives in Detroit.

Searching For Sugarman

After finding Rodriguez, Sugarman contacts Rodriguez and asks him to come on tour in South Africa. Rodriguez is skeptical about the idea of having fans in South Africa, but eventually accepts the tour and arrives in South Africa. Still working as a laborer in Detroit, fixing up houses, Rodriguez can’t believe what he sees when he first arrives in South Africa. A luxury limousine awaited him, and a crowd of fans welcomed him to South Africa. In 1998, Rodriguez sold out every show in South Africa that had more than 5,000 seats, and every fan in the country was thrilled to see him perform. Since then, Rodriguez has traveled to South Africa four more times and performed over 30 shows. But Rodriguez has lived in the same house for 40 years and still does home repairs. The movie ends with Rodriguez living a frugal life, giving all the money he earned from his performances to his family and friends, and living up to his fame.

“Searching for Sugar Man” is a tracking documentary that follows the life of a musician. However, unlike other tracking documentaries, it is not a documentary where the director follows the subject he wants to follow, but a documentary that re-visualizes the subject that has already been followed. The documentary is divided into four parts. The first part of the documentary introduces Rodriguez, the main character of the documentary, with his music, his popularity in South Africa, and the story of his death. After introducing Rodriguez, the film moves to Detroit, USA, where Rodriguez was active, and shows interviews with people who worked with Rodriguez. The movie then cuts back to South Africa to provide context for why Rodriguez was so popular in South Africa, and then the movie begins to show their journey to find him. Toward the end of the movie, they find him and show him touring in South Africa and interviews with him, highlighting the relationship between Rodriguez and South Africa in a more cinematic way than the movie.

As the title of the movie suggests, “Searching For Sugar man” shows a journey in search of a sugar man (Rodriguez). What we find on this journey is not only a singer named Rodriguez, but also his life after becoming the national singer of South Africa overnight without his knowledge, and what we expect his current life to be like afterwards is not what the audience imagines. He still lives in Detroit, working as a laborer. Despite his dramatic success, Rodriguez’s life is not dramatic at all. On the contrary, the documentary suggests that this is the drama of Rodriguez’s life. In this way, “Searching for Sugar Man” is a documentary that tells the story of a man’s dramatic success, while also telling the story of his life and his music.