Customer Reviews

Gypsy Caravan: When the Road Bends

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The premise here is very simple: 4 countries, 5 bands, and a 6 week tour of the US/Canada circa 2001 by filmmaker Jasmine Dellal ("American Gypsy: A Stranger In Everybody's Land"). The bands represent different styles of Roma/Gypsy music coming together at a crossroads of diasporic jamming. This film has the feel of "Festival Express" meets "The Last Waltz", but with better music and some awe inspiring stage performances!

The bands come from Rajasthan, India (Maharajah), Macedonia (Esma Redzepova/Ensemble Teodosievski), Spain (Antonio El Pipa), and two are from Romania (Taraf de Haidouks and Fanfare Ciocarlia). For those who've seen the films of Tony Gatlif, Emir Kusturica, or the films "The Man Who Cried" and "Borat", the Romanian bands will sound very familiar to you because their music has been featured in these films. The sounds represent flamenco, brass, orchestra-ensemble, strings, laments, and ragas...an incredibly mixed bag over the Romani diaspora and even centuries. As for the dance, amazing.

It must be said that the music is phenomenal, these musicians give truly transcendent performances. For me, it's the interactions between these acts and the glimpses into their respective lives/homelands that take this from being just another concert film to a pure delight. There's so much joy here...joy in the music and with each other and the joy given to the audiences watching. You get to see where the music comes from in terms of experiences and history....how each land influenced it's musicians as much as the musician have influenced it.

These folks really had great fun and enjoyed each other's company, this is evident and great to watch. They seemed so intrigued by the music of their counterparts and so interested in the similarities to their own. The band that seemed most popular and intriguing to all the musicians were the Rajasthanis, Maharajah, who brought the roots. All of this mutual interest produced a not-to-be-missed jam-filled finale.

As for Johnny Depp, he's in this documentary for about 2-3 minutes. He appears in connection with the band Taraf de Haidouks. He counted them as friends and he worked with them on "The Man Who Cried" becoming a huge fan and acquiring a fedora habit. They appeared at The Viper Room. He wanted his name to not appear in promotion of this film for fear of overshadowing it. It's not about him, so Depp fans buy this knowing it's 3 mins of him and 2 hrs of great Roma music. Nicolae Neascu, the leader of Taraf de Haidouks, has a rather amusing comment on the subject. The Taraf seem to have gained a few more famous admirers in Iggy Pop and Jim Jarmusch via JD.

This film is a wonderful introduction to Roma/Gypsy music and very entertaining in general. Watching this has definitely made me seek out more of the artists' work and led to deeper interest in Roma cultures and people. This film inspires, showing beauty can emerge from any situation, no matter how harsh.

The Roma people are little known, like the wind ranging over the earth, transformative and invisible, but felt unless you never leave your domicile. Not surprising, Johnny Depp's glance with a Roma troupe resulted in lifelong changes, I think especially for him. The film follows many living threads of "gypsy" culture and music, which had been unaware of each other, having dispersed to distant lands, and naturally evolved musically with different ways. The phenomenal idea actualized and here documented: a colloborative concert bringing family together, who sing, play, and dance their way along time and continents all home to the roma. There is nothing simple about portraying any people, but these people and the filmmakers are undeniable in their authenticity. This film can contribute to anyone's experience and understanding of our humanity.

Thoroughly enjoyed this movie. An incredible capture of different gypsy cultures and their music (they're really ONE culture, that has spread out through Western Europe and the Middle East). Having grown up in southern Spain and attended elementary school and high-school there, this movie quite moved me. It flooded me with all sorts of memories and emotions, of a people very enlightened, who almost intentionally reject this
"cerebral era" that we live in, and choose to look towards miracles in every day life.

Having sat in elementary school with numerous gypsy kids it was great to watch these groups of gypsies traveling through the U.S. on tour. In multiple instances I burst out into laughter watching them interact with our American culture.

To end my review and most importantly, this movie is about music. Gypsy music. Which is pure spirit and emotion. I hope you enjoy this movie.

This documentary, which chronicles a concert tour of amazingly talented Roma people from several different countries, is already a favorite at our house. There are too many "good" parts to mention them all, but here are a few: Gypsy Esma, both singing and reminiscing; a fabulous aunt(Juana)-nephew Flamenco duo; Nikolai the Romanian elder statesman of the violin; a young Indian man who dances quite remarkably on his knees; there's even an interview with Johnny Depp recounting his experiences while making the film, "The Man Who Cried." I was so inspired after watching this that I bought DVDs of both The Man Who Cried and Gadjo Dilo.

GYPSY CARAVAN is a superb film that transports you to distinctly different corners of the globe musically, while traveling the United States on a journey led by five amazing "Gypsy" musical groups who are often separated by language, but connected by culture. The cinematography is rich and the sensitivity that Jasmine Dellal brings to her project is infectious and you embrace each of the five bands and dancers. As Margaret Meade was quoted as saying, "It's the parallels in cultures that connect us." This film easily delivers and I would place it on my personal top ten list for documentary features!

This is the Roma version of "The Buena Vista Social Club." It follows a six-week, cross-country tour of the United States and Canada of five gypsy bands, two from Romania and the others from Macedonia, Spain and India. At almost two hours, it's too long. We get to see them perform, hear the wide variety of their music and we get to know the musicians and see them in their homes.
The music is pretty good for those who like this kind of thing but the discussion of the problems facing Roma is very superficial and avoids the big issues.
Having lived in Romania for a year, I know a little about these problems. Roma live in great poverty and suffer from some of the same problems as Native Americans -- high degrees of unemployment and abuse of drugs and alcohol. One sees their very young children begging in the streets every day, pestering passersby with great persistence. I was attacked and bitten by a Roma dog guarding an abandoned building in which they were squatting. There is also the big stereotype -- thievery. Of course not all gypsies are thieves -- far from it. But some are. One can find them picking pockets in almost every railroad station in Europe.
This movie does show the son of one of the Romanian musicians getting married to a 13-year-old girl who sits at the wedding smoking furiously. This passes without any comment as if it's totally normal and acceptable.
Bottom line: watch this movie for the music, not for the insight.

What a real treat for lovers of Gypsy music. Not only does it include perfromance of the tour, but a series of in-depth interviews with the musicians, tour organizers, etc. Add to this mix, footage of the musicians in their home towns and you have a documentary reminiscent of "Latcho Drom". A particularly poignant sequence includes the funeral of Taraf violinist Nicolae Neacsu, who apparently died during the tour. It was in his native village, Clejani in Romania. It tends to be a little long but I honestly wouldn't know where to cut it.
It is definitely worth buying and watching it multiple times (as I have done with Latcho Drom). It is a pity that Latcho Drom has not been released on DVD.

This is a great film. A lot of music and some documentary of the Roma(Gypsy) Caravan tour. I would recommend this film and Latcho Drom(Safe Journey) if you are interested in the Roma music and lifestyle.

A really enlightening look at the history and origins of the gypsy culture-the varying degrees of acceptance, the differing styles of music, dress, culture. The Queen of the Gypsies? She's here, check it out.

This film follows a tour in the U.S. of several Roma (gypsy) groups from Romania, India, Spain, and Macedonia. They all speak the same verbal language but not the same musical language. By the conclusion of the tour, they are able to come together in a musical extravaganza.
Over the course of the film, I felt I had gotten an authentic taste of the cultures of the various groups - they are quite different - and some of the "stars" of the groups. When one of them dies before the end of the tour, his group returns to their native land for a wake which I needed, too, I had come to love him that much.
Roma have been unjustly maligned all over the world and for a long time. They all live "some" place, but they have no homeland. Perhaps they have infused their music with the joy that is usually attached to a homeland because it is a joyous caravan, indeed.