The Buena Vista Social Club

You may want to put the movie The Buena Vista Social Club on your holiday wish list! It is a beautiful film, and a wonderful resource for observing people of different soultypes expressing the strength and wisdom of their souls.

Click here for biographies, with photos, of most of the performers, as well as video interviews. The links are in the left column under The Film and Interviews (Video).

Following are the soultypes of the members of the Buena Vista Social Club and the filmmakers:

SoulType 1 - Omara Portuondo
SoulType 2 - Juan de Marcos Gonzalez
SoulType 3 - Compay Segundo
SoulType 4 - Orlando “Cacahaito” Lopez
SoulType 5 - Amadito Baldes
SoulType 6 - Ry Cooder, Wim Wenders and Manuel “Guajiro” Mirabel
SoulType 7 - Pio Leyva, Ruben Gonzalez and Barbarito Torres
SoulType 8 - Eliades Ochoa
SoulType 9 - Ibrahim Ferrer and Joachim Cooder

As you watch the movie, notice how each of these people move, how they use eye contact, and how your body feels when you watch them. Sense the different qualities of their energy.

Look for the following scenes in which these individuals are embodying their soultypes in a very tangible way:

Omara Portuondo (SoulType 1) As she sings and moves across the stage, watch her move from her throat, and notice the soft receptiveness of her eyes. Also, the scene in which she walks down the street singing and greeting people--observe how they respond to her, and the feeling that she sees the divine in every person. Watch for a beautiful scene at the beginning of the movie when she sings with Ibrahim Ferrer--the camera circles them as they sing, looking into each other's eyes.

Ibrahim Ferrer (SoulType 9) Ibrahim's face shows that he is in touch with something much bigger than himself, in particular:

• when he sings with Omara at the beginning of the movie

• when he receives applause while standing onstage at the
  end of the movie at Carnegie Hall

• when he talks about his life and his mother

As you watch, notice how it feels in your body to be with a SoulType 9.

Compay Segundo (SoulType 3) Feel his energy as he describes the song while sitting in his room on the bed. Also, notice his compelling charm as he drives through town looking for the old Buena Vista Club. His shows the beautiful SoulType 3 smile when he sings on stage with both Omara and Ry Cooder.

Ruben Gonzalez (SoulType 7) In the scene where the Buena Vista social club plays at Carnegie Hall, see how this pianist moves from his forehead when he plays solo piano.

Pio Leyva (SoulType 7) Feel his playfulness as he sings and holds the microphone out to the audience.

Eliades Ochoa (SoulType 8) Feel the slides of his body as he walks along the railroad tracks while he plays the guitar. Notice how connected to the ground his energy is when he sits down to play.

Ry Cooder (SoulType 6) During the motorcycle ride into town his body takes in the world at his chest, the location of his movement/energy center. Notice his heightened awareness of music whenever he listens, and how he picks up every nuance.

Joachim Cooder (SoulType 9) - Watch the fluid movement of his body as he sits and plays the drums - it is like watching the waves in the ocean.

Juan de Marcos Gonzalez (SoulType 2) As the band's coordinator and one of the driving forces behind the Buena Vista Social Club, his energy helped pull the people together to make this happen. He is seen only briefly throughout the film in a short interview near the end: he's outside, wearing shorts and leaning against a building door frame.

Wim Wenders (SoulType 6) As the movie's producer and director, his filmmaking style communicates how a SoulType 6 senses the world: many hits of richness, depth, and intensity coming from everything and anything in the environment. It is a constant swirl: a cigar, the shine on a person's shoes, leaves sparkling in the sun, the color of a car, the sound of the waves... Intense energy is moving all around and it never stops.

Following is an excerpt from an article about Wim Wenders and the Buena Vista Social Club:

In late December Wim Wenders visited Australia to promote Buena Vista Social Club, his documentary on the life and music of what is now Cuba's most famous band. Described by some as a love letter to Cuba and its musicians, the film was shot over three weeks in 1998 and released to widespread critical acclaim last year. The film powerfully captures the alluring beauty of Cuban music and the irrepressible energy and artistic vitality of Buena Vista Social Club band members, whose average age is 70.

Wenders, who was born in 1945, studied medicine and philosophy before attending the Academy of Film and Television in Munich from 1967-70. He was a film critic for Süddeutsche Zeitung and Filmkritik in the late 1960s and since 1970 has directed more than 20 feature films. Along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog, Wenders was one of the leading figures of the New German Cinema of the 1970s. Many of his films achieve the lyrical and atmospheric mysticism first produced by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni. One leading cinematographer accurately commented that "light and landscape are actors" in all Wenders' films.--Richard Phillips 1/10/00)

#4 - 11/25/03