Swedish director Malik Bendjalloul discusses music and documentaries

In what has been a very triumphant year for documentaries, with fantastic features such as The Imposter, Marley and Being Elmo all hitting our screens – arguably the finest of them all is Searching for Sugar Man, and to celebrate the DVD release of the feature The Fan Carpet‘s Stefan Pape caught up with Swedish director Malik Bendjalloul.

Searching for Sugar Man – which comes out on DVD and Blu-ray on December 27 – tells the story of Rodriguez; a talented musician who spent the vast majority of his life completely unaware that in South Africa he was a huge star.

Bendjalloul discusses his own relationship with Rodriguez, what makes the musician so special, and his thoughts on potentially revisiting this remarkable story…

For those who missed this on its theatrical release, can you tell us a bit about the story?

The story is about a man called Rodriguez who didn’t know he was famous basically. He was living his whole life in obscurity in Detroit, not knowing that at the very same time in South Africa he was more famous than The Rolling Stones, and he did not know about it.

Of course you must have spent a lot of time with Rodriguez, not only when shooting but in recent months promoting the film. I imagine you’ve formed a friendship with him, is that quite surreal in itself?

Yeah it’s pretty surreal. It’s cool that all those things are happening right now, he’s touring in America, he’s touring in England, he’s going to tour in South Africa soon. It’s pretty surreal.

Was that ever the intention when making the film – that this could be the kickstarting of his career and elevate him to the stardom he’s always deserved?

It wasn’t the purpose, I just wanted to tell a good story. But it happened to be a story that could make this happen, because the story in itself is about recognition, or lack of, so even you doing this interview adds to that story as well, the story is still being written. Normally when stories are over they’re over, but this due to what this is about, it’s still evolving. It will be interesting to do a second part, I’m not going to do that though.

A lot of people are now interested in seeing what has happened to Rodriguez now and this revival… Have you had any thoughts about returning to his story?

I’m not going to do that because I think it’s healthy for you to move on and not get stuck on one thing. I would like to see that movie though, the same thing that happened in South Africa is now happening in the rest of the world, that he is getting this recognition he deserves. He’s that good.

So what is he like? He comes across as a very humble man.

Oh he is, he really is. In a way that I’ve seen so few people like that. Everyone says it’s very hard to interview him because he doesn’t like to speak about himself, but I think the reason he doesn’t like to speak about himself is because he lacks an ego, and if you don’t have an ego it’s really hard talking about yourself because you honestly don’t think you’re that interesting – but when I was trying to convince him, I would say “Rodriguez – you have the most interesting life ever” and he would say “No, I don’t. From my viewpoint I really don’t” and I think he meant that.

The story is of course fantastic, but do you think the fact he is so down to earth is what makes this film so special?

It’s true. Maybe these sort of things can only happen to guys like him. To completely miss that you’re famous could only happen to a person who isn’t eager to become famous. Maybe it makes sense why it happens to him, but I hadn’t met him before I did almost half of the filming, so I was very happy that he was the man who he was, because he could have been anyone. It’s interesting that this happened to a man of this personality, it’s wonderful. He’s a guy who actually never went along with the path he could have taken to become a major star. You know, they asked him to change his name and he said “No, of course not,” and they said “But Bob Dylan changed his name from Robert Zimmerman.” But he refused, so they wanted to change his name to Rod Riguez, and they did that – his first single was released under than name, with Rod as his first name. But he thought it was ridiculous, he is who he is, take him or leave him.

Did you know anything about this story growing up, or did you first learn about it as a filmmaker?

I was looking for a story for TV, I used to do a lot of spectacular stories and this was just one of those, but I kind of smelt that it was better than the others. I went travelling for 6 months with a camera, looking for a story, hoping to sell them for Swedish TV, and this one developed over four years.

You must still feel quite shocked that this story fell into your lap? You would think it would have been made a long time ago.

Exactly, why didn’t anyone make it? Why didn’t a South African filmmaker make it? Maybe in South Africa the story was too famous, like why should we make another film about The Beatles? Everyone knew that story, but in the rest of the world the story wasn’t famous enough.

Searching for Sugar Man was recently nominated at the BIFA’s in the best foreign film category – does it please you it’s up for best film rather than documentary? Is that how you want the film to be perceived?

Yes very much, of any nomination we’re ever going to get this is the one I’m most proud of in a way, because it’s actually competing against Amour and Beasts of the Southern Wild which is a really cool thing.

Do you have any ideas for the future about making a fictional film? Or will you always stay within documentary making?

I don’t know. Right now I’m thinking about a little bit of everything, and we’ll see what happens. But right now I’m planning on going travelling again for stories, that’s what I plan on doing next.

Searching For Sugar Man Film Page | Searching For Sugar Man Review

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN IS OUT ON BLU-RAY AND DVD ON DECEMBER 27