"The Music of Strangers" is an American English-language movie from last year (2015). It runs for slightly over 1.5 hours and was directed by Morgan Neville, Oscar winner for "20 Feet from Stardom". And as much as I was disappointed with the latter, I am equally disappointed with this more recent work we have here. The center of it is famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma and we meet several members of his Silk Road orchestra. With this name, you obviously immediately understand that this is as much of a cultural project as it is a political. On a side-note, it is a bit of an equivalent of Daniel Barenboim's recent project (an orchestra that includes Israeli and Palestinean musicians). Ma, however, has people from all over the world, also countries far far away from the Silk Road, such as Spain or the United States. A lot of the focus is about Yo-Yo Ma himself and his life as a musician. We see interviews from decades ago where we find out what his view on things was back then.
In addition to that we find out about some other members of the orchestra, for example an Iranian who struggles with his country's politics and the fact that he can not speak freely because his wife/girlfriend still lives there. Or a Spanish female singer who brings the spirit of the soil to the group. The latter reference already tells you that this is a fairly pretentious film on several occasions. Not only did I feel that I did not learn much at all about the music, the people's backgrounds or the concept of the orchestra in general, this lack of information was tried to get hidden behind an accumulation of seemingly important quotes and references (some downright poetic) and to me personally almost all of it rang pretty fake and scripted and staged. And honestly, why would we care what any of the people in here did on 911. It was a tragic day yes, but the reference to this film/project felt so non-existent to me.
On a more positive note, the music is sometimes fine, even if I felt the musicians overacted a lot while performing. But honestly, I found most of the people depicted in here pretty unlikable and there are some cringeworthy sequences in there too, for example when Ma makes a joke about the sound of a noisy horse fart and everybody finds it oh so funny. Or the part when the one guy brings flutes to children and they exaggerate it all that it is oh so forbidden and that he is smuggling these and it is all so risky, but he is such a good guy and doesn't care about the risks. Guess what! It's risky? Do not film it. I am sure nobody suspected anything with a film crew accompanying the man. Cringeworthy stuff. This documentary has almost nothing to offer from the informative standpoint and if you want to hear the music, I suggest you just listen to a record from the ensemble or see them live. The experience is certainly much better than the one you get from watching this movie. 4 stars out of 10 is almost too generous. Big thumbs-down from me.
In addition to that we find out about some other members of the orchestra, for example an Iranian who struggles with his country's politics and the fact that he can not speak freely because his wife/girlfriend still lives there. Or a Spanish female singer who brings the spirit of the soil to the group. The latter reference already tells you that this is a fairly pretentious film on several occasions. Not only did I feel that I did not learn much at all about the music, the people's backgrounds or the concept of the orchestra in general, this lack of information was tried to get hidden behind an accumulation of seemingly important quotes and references (some downright poetic) and to me personally almost all of it rang pretty fake and scripted and staged. And honestly, why would we care what any of the people in here did on 911. It was a tragic day yes, but the reference to this film/project felt so non-existent to me.
On a more positive note, the music is sometimes fine, even if I felt the musicians overacted a lot while performing. But honestly, I found most of the people depicted in here pretty unlikable and there are some cringeworthy sequences in there too, for example when Ma makes a joke about the sound of a noisy horse fart and everybody finds it oh so funny. Or the part when the one guy brings flutes to children and they exaggerate it all that it is oh so forbidden and that he is smuggling these and it is all so risky, but he is such a good guy and doesn't care about the risks. Guess what! It's risky? Do not film it. I am sure nobody suspected anything with a film crew accompanying the man. Cringeworthy stuff. This documentary has almost nothing to offer from the informative standpoint and if you want to hear the music, I suggest you just listen to a record from the ensemble or see them live. The experience is certainly much better than the one you get from watching this movie. 4 stars out of 10 is almost too generous. Big thumbs-down from me.