October 25th, 2007
“When the road bends”
Last weekend we were lucky enough to see the film When the road bends: Gypsy Caravan, which documents the travels of five Romani musical groups on tour around North America. It’s a wonderful film and I want to recommend that people see it, but I found that everything I thought of writing about it sounded just like the white tradition of consuming the cultures of others as entertainment. I don’t think that was my experience of the film, or not completely, but I have had trouble finding the words to describe how I experienced it without falling back into that tradition. To some degree at least, there’s no way around that, since the musicians in the film need money and music is what they have to sell–(some white) people in the US have money, so it makes sense for them to come here. I don’t think that’s right, or good, at all, but I think it’s a major reason why capitalist white supremacy persists and it feeds the “tacos and eggrolls” mentality wherein “diverse” cultural traditions are reduced to horizon-broadening educational experiences for white people.
I also think most of the musicians featured simply love their work, love music, and love performing, and were genuinely happy to be able to share their talent and expertise with enthusiastic, appreciative audiences. Nothing is ever all one way or the other, is it?
There’s plenty of sexism in the film, which I don’t think it is my place to critique at length. Kya and I had a really good conversation about our reactions to that and the deconstruction of them by looking at similar treatment of women and girls in the US and specifically in white culture. That really helped us see through the kind of racist reaction that’s based on othering–oh, how those people over there do things is SO terrible, while completely overlooking sexist oppression in white communities.
The best, most real and honest thing I can say is that I watched the film with a broad and deep awareness of commonalities which was partly spontaneous and partly consciously cultivated. For example, the woman in the photo is Esma Redzepova, a Macedonian Roma musician, who I fell in love with immediately. She is brilliant and beautiful and exuberant and political and amazingly big-hearted. She reminded me so much of the big strong no-nonsense women of my family and the passionate fat lesbian friends I adore, and as such I was very drawn to her throughout the film. You can listen to some of Esma’s music here.
I had a similar reaction to Juana, the flamenco singer, who told of her mother who danced flamenco at 265 pounds and astounded everyone who saw her perform with her strength, beauty, and talent. Juana’s singing voice was deep, raw, and compelling, and in her interview she talked about the difficulties she and her family had gone through with poverty, oppression, and drugs. The repeated emphasis in the film on community, family, loyalty, and support for one another through poverty and hardship are values that are part of my ancestry as well and were other points of connection for me with the people and their stories. These similarities helped me be aware of the consumerist tendencies I’ve been trained to have–the impulse to keep the self at a distance by, for example, feeling pity for the lack of material goods or the rural lives of some of the musicians, or romanticizing the simplicity, constant humor, and vibrant community connections that characterized the musicians’ lives–and which are so lacking for so many white middle-class people in the US.
So, it’s a great film–the title comes from a Romani proverb, “It’s hard to walk straight when the road bends”–and if you have the chance to see it, go for it.
