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In this titillating documentary, the Brazilian video maker Joćo Moreira Salles goes in search of the roots of the meaning of American blues music. The trail leads to the cotton plantations and the 'juke joints' in the southern states where Highway 61 leads the musicians through like a magnetic tape. 'Blues' investigates the true nature of this Afro-American music using a number of themes ('The sombre meaning', 'The devil, the blood & profane music', 'Booze, women & crooked dice') and lets some very old pioneers talk in their own surroundings. Singer, guitarist and sculptor James Son Thomas on the veranda of his house, Sunnyland Slim and Bonnie Lee in the bedroom and Sam Carr in his kitchen. Salles makes a definite choice for the origin and development of country blues in the Mississippi delta. He takes the viewer to Friars Point and Clarksdale where the legendary Robert Johnson lived and played in the thirties. The trail then leads to the north as Salles follows the black migration after the war, finally ending up in 'Sweet home Chicago'. 'Blues' is a poetic and penetrating documentary that rejects an academic approach and respects the musicians by letting them talk, but especially sing, about the blues themselves.
Erik Quint
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