Watch Gypsy Caravan: When the Road Bends For Free

Powerful

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

A few years back, five groups of musicians and performers, from four different countries - India, Romania, Macedonia, Spain - yet all united by their common gypsy heritage, set off on a six-week tour through North America that came to be known as the Gypsy Caravan. Albert Maysles' "When the Road Bends: Tales of a Gypsy Caravan" is a documentary account of that tour.The movie makes it clear that gypsy music has its roots firmly planted in personal hardship and social protest, that it is an organic response to the bigotry and oppression gypsies have suffered under from time immemorial.The filmmakers spend much of their time interviewing the performers either behind-the-scenes at rehearsals or on the bus the group travels on from one location to the next. It is here that we see the camaraderie that develops among the members, as well as the personal conflicts and artistic disputes that are an inevitable part of any group activity. But it is when they are all on stage, performing to packed houses in cities like New York, Miami, San Francisco, etc., that we feel the sheer joy that comes from sharing one's passion with an enraptured audience.The movie makers also travel to some of the performers' native towns and villages to try and get a feel for who these people truly are and the lands and cultures from which they spring.The result is a moving, informative, and musically enriching glimpse into a people and an art form that few Westerners know much, if anything, about.

I stumbled upon this on PBS, and I'm enchanted. I've always been fascinated by the Romani culture and history, and there is so much of that here, tucked in between the songs. There is so much good information here about a people who have been horribly misunderstood and persecuted for most of their history. The movie's approach of wrapping the history and culture into the music, and the stories of the musicians, works very well. The artists, from India, Macedonia, Romania, Spain...all very different, but springing from the same place in the heart. Beautiful, soulful music from beautiful, soulful people. I especially enjoyed Esma, and her stories of life with her husband, Stevo. But I also loved Maharajah, and the other bands. The whole thing is beautifully done. I'll be buying this so I can watch it at my leisure. Don't miss it if you have a chance to see it.

Chris Knipp has it exactly right in his comment above. "Latcho Drom" is one of the best films I've ever seen, the ultimate presentation of Rom music, and it's a crime that it is still not released on DVD. This clunker is almost embarrassingly bad. The producers of the "Caravan" rounded up a motley assortment of "gypsy" acts, some good, some awful, and made a cheapo roadshow with them. The camera work is amateurish, and the disrespect of beginning any performance only to cut away to jolly tour bus or village scenes is infuriating. The director had no sense of how to film music, taking either a flat view from audience front center, or extreme close-ups full of sweat rivulets and nostril hair (not that there's anything wrong with that!). The Spanish flamenco act is particularly cringe-worthy. When you've seen great film scenes of major flamenco talent, such as in the classic works of Carlos Saura, "Antonio" and his aunt Juana appear grotesquely clownish. Antonio performs like someone out of a "Spinal Tap" sort of parody, and his inarguably ugly aunt is presented as some sort of flamenco earth-mother, though her singing is less authentic than awful. The only redeeming moment comes at the end of the film when the audience is shocked and saddened at the unexpected death of one of the performers, and it really is painful to watch the friends' grief. Even then, on second thought, there's something cheesily exploitative about it all.

Wonderful music. I wish that film makers would get over their fear of music. Time after time these wonderful musicians would begin to meld on stage into a gorgeous multi-ethnic stew of style and spirit, and bang-o, off we'd go to Roumania or Macedonia to see the musicians on their home ground. There's a place for both, of course, but more often than not the latter occurred at the expense of the former. Then there was an astonishingly bad editing choice at the end of the film, when a perfect coda of sadness and longing was stepped on by the film maker in favor of the big bang theory of ending movies. The musicians deserved better and the audience deserved better.