Down from the Mountain and Vengo Reviewed

ROVIN' AND RAVIN' WITH MIKE

Vengo and Down from the Mountain

It is a standard precept of criticism of film or literature either that one does not judge a work by its subject. There have been very great films with terrible subjects; perhaps the best example is Triumph of the Will, which was supposed to have been a triumph of propaganda for Adolf Hitler, but which turned out to be so much more. At the same time, it is possible to have a terrible film with truly uplifting content—content which may uplift us but not the work itself. As a longtime teacher in a former lifetime, I could point to so many amateur poems, especially, full of noble thoughts but with decidedly soggy feet for any value they might have.

And that’s all a round-about way to these two little films, Vengo (I Come), a film about or full of flamenco music, and Down from the Mountain, a concert of music from the most enjoyable film I’ve ever seen, O Brother, Where Art Thou? Although the classic Hollywood musical is a thing of the past, music continues to figure prominently in the development of many films, but for these two, music is the content, the primary reason for their being.

Vengo is set in, of all places, Andalusia, a section of southern Spain where, somehow, the ancient story of murder and revenge runs its course with CD’s and cell ‘phones scattered throughout. Andalusia and this film are not that far from Africa. Neither is the traditional flamenco music that this film celebrates. Listening to the various “musics” in this film, it is, at least for the owner of my untrained ears, not possible to place them geographically.

But, I can place them solidly in my heart, if not too securely within the context of this film, a winding, exotic story about rival gypsy families. Apparently, although I do not know, there are some well-known contemporary flamenco performers in this film. Flamenco, like tango, it must be pointed out, is not simply a dance step. It is a rich body of music from the very souls of the people who sing it. My favorite moments of Vengo, and there are many, occur when the plot simply shuts down, and someone with a rough, worn face and an equally rough, worn voice, does a little self-surgery, pulling out the very depths of the heart for our listening pleasure. As when I listen to some of the best jazz, I feel sometimes embarrassed when I hear some of the performances in this decidedly little but decidedly fascinating film. Its subject, the music, is great, but just not great enough to sustain this film.

***

Now, I’m going to break the rule about judging a film by its content, and say that despite the film itself, Down from the Mountain is carried by its content, the rich traditions of American “roots” music that delivers so much of the wallop of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a film which, although it has been out just a little over a year, has the distinction of being watched by me more often than any other film. So, there’s obviously something packing a wallop there somehow in the Coen brothers’ lovely retelling of the Odyssey in Depression-era Mississippi. One pleasure in calling your attention to Down from the Mountain is to call your attention again to O Brother, Where Art Thou? and its marvelous music.

The current film itself is the kind of sprawling (but under two-hour) concert film that, for me, always waters down rather than intensifies the experience of the music. Many of the musicians who participated in the music for O Brother came together for a fund-raising concert in Nashville, and D.A. Pennebaker was assigned to preserve the concert, not simply a stage show but also a documentary look backstage as well.

There are great voices and wonderful faces galore, many of them belonging to folks that I, at least, have never heard of. I particularly remember three little girls with oversized hair-bows. Yes, hair-bows! It’s a hair-bow kind of crowd. Unfortunately, Pennebaker chose to devote most of his camera time to the dubious celebrities on board, mainly Emmylou Harris and John Hartford. Granted, Harris can sing the paint off the walls, but do we really need to know about her enthusiasm for sports? (I would have rather heard more about Bible verses from one of the girls in the hair-bows.) The undue attention to John Hartford represents so well the problem with this film. OK, one should not speak ill of the dead, and Hartford died recently, but he is one of those performers whose studied folksiness shows a certain contempt for the folks. Think of Garrison Keillor at his worst—in fact, the film seems to bear a distinct PBS/NPR air, a certain heavy sincerity that lacks sincerity.

But when the film does what it does best, recording the performers and the audience, it is very, very good indeed. We catch a single twinkle in an eye, perhaps a tear, a slight twist of the mouth as a frown turns to a smile. We are introduced to folks from across the south, folks of various colors and ages, those are the ones on the stage, and we see in the audience’s faces the welcome glow of recognition.

Ralph Stanley, a celebrity in his own right within the field of bluegrass music, takes center stage and camera for the starkly moving, downright terrifying, “O Death.” Sung without musical accompaniment or camera hijinks, the old song comes across more powerfully here than in O Brother, where it is the theme song of the weirdly comic Ku Klux Klan rally.

In fact, the all too few moments of Stanley, with his bare ruined choir of a voice, speaking/singing the universal fear of death (the great medieval allegory Everyman for dummies), gives this slight documentary a giant head start on the race for a place on my list of ten best films of the year.

Keep your feet dry and your toes tappin', your heart full of noble thoughts, and the uncouth but lovely music of these films in your ears.