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VUE WEEKLY – Fame
is a finicky mistress – when you have her, she treats you like it’s
true love, like it’ll be forever. But it rarely is. Take 1960s Cuban
super-group Los Zafiros – they were the hottest group out of the tiny
tropical island, the Latin Beatles – some 40 years later, they are the
biggest band that you’ve never heard about. Director
Lorenzo DeStefano, with “LOS ZAFIROS=-MUSIC FROM THE EDGE OF TIME”,
aims to inform his audience of their phenomenon through the eyes of the
last two remaining members. The documentary follow Miguel “Miguelito”
Cancio, now living in As
the story is told, Los Zafiros (The Sapphires) formed in 1962 and
consisted of four vocalists and Galban as arranger and guitarist. Mixing
the rhythms of bossa and calypso with American doo-wop, the group’s own
brand of pop spread widely around the country. Cuban children today can
still sing their songs. Their music was light in an era when the island
was considered persona non grata by the Western world. Unfortunately,
the rock’n’roll lifestyle caught up with them, causing the breakup of
the band and the death pf two singers sue to alcohol-related illnesses.
Although the film can be a little cloying in its praise of Los
Zafiros, it nonetheless reels its audience in with its honest portrayal of
the ambivalence Galban and Cancio feel about the death of three of their
closest friends, and even about their own fame. While
the pair, and others, happily reminisce about that golden age through the
lens of time, it’s still tinged with the melancholy of true love lost,
and it’s a feeling that all of us can relate with. |