reviewed at Intl. Documentary Festival Amsterdam – running time 96 min – Published on Variety, by Peter Debruge, Chief International Film Critic, Nov. 29, 2013 … American ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno’s journey into the Congo (and back) is the subject of this mesmerizing documentary.
Having left his native New Jersey long behind, Louis Sarno has dedicated the better part of his life to documenting one of the rarest and most remote musical traditions on earth — that of the Central African Republic’s Bayaka pygmies. In “Song From the Forest,” German director Michael Obert displays only passing interest in this music, offering instead a mesmerizing glimpse into Sarno’s search for a sub-Saharan Walden and the implications of that choice. Best suited to NPR-listening, New Yorker-skimming culture-philes, this loosely structured but intricately sound-designed docu serves as a fest-friendly follow-up to both Sarno’s little-read autobiography and “Oka!,” the even-less-seen fish-out-of-water dramedy inspired by his story … // Continuer la lecture de « Film: Song From the Forest »