TROPICALIA: Singer Caetano Veloso is featured in the documentary 'Wandering Heart,' which is part of a trio of Brazilian films featured at the 92 Y Tribeca's Janeiro in New York series. (Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
However, director Fernando Grostein Andrade offers a different perspective on Veloso, capturing the musician-vocalist’s laid-back sense of humor in Wandering Heart, which screens Wednesday as the first of three Brazilian music documentaries in Cinema Tropical’s Janeiro in New York film series at the 92 Y Tribeca.
Loosely structured, Wandering Heart essentially follows Veloso during the American media campaign for his first English language album and his subsequent tour of Japan, where he seems to have remarkably photogenic fans. As a result, the audience gets to hear some of his renditions of American popular songs, like the Berlin standard “Blue Skies”, in addition to his traditional favorites.
Veloso’s fans know him as a charismatic performer, but they might be surprised by how funny he is in private. Sometimes he even cracks himself up, as when he tells a Lady Diana anecdote that is incomprehensible due to his giggling. Still, the music heard throughout Wandering Heart is of the consistent high quality his listeners will expect.
While Andrade by-and-large paints a portrait of an artist living the good life, late in the film he includes Veloso’s oblique references to his personal tragedies, which add considerable context to the musician’s apparent happy-go-lucky attitude. Ultimately, Veloso emerges as a genuinely likable individual, joking with fans and laughing off criticism, secure in his estimable place in the Brazilian music scene.
Though the film’s running time barely exceeds one hour, Andrade uses nearly every second. Viewers should be advised to stay through the entire final credits, because they are liberally interspersed with further candid footage and a brief but complete performance.
Wandering Heart is an entertaining profile of Veloso that should please longtime fans and intrigue new listeners. Refreshingly, he comes across like a person who would be fun to hang with—youthful in his 66 years, despite his arrest and period of exile during the years of the military regime. It should be a crowd pleaser this Wednesday (9/23), when it kicks-off Janeiro in New York.
Joe Bendel blogs on jazz and cultural issues at http://jbspins.blogspot.com and coordinated the Jazz Foundation of America's instrument donation campaign for musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
