Te-Lo Mai’s blog

Jasmine Dellal’s documentary of the 2001 traffic in-ended visit of the US undertaken by a specially convoked five-nation group of Gypsy musicians offers some individually vibrant performances and captivating ‘back-home’ to footage but is somewhat contract out down by a scarcity of directorial intuition and uninteresting or clumsy editing. The great Albert Maysles is credited among 11 cinematographers, a plenitude that may assistants extenuate the film’s be without of visual coherence, rhythm and proper colour balance. In the same, its insights into the yesteryear of the Romany diaspora, however sympathetic, seem quick. Still, you can’t keep a legitimate band down, and famous names such as Romania’s Taraf de Haïdouks, Macedonia’s ‘official leading light of the Gypsies’ Esma Redzepova, Andalucia’s Antonio El Pípa and Rajastan’s Maharaja not only blow up a storm or cry a river but divulge foot-stomping evidence of the contrast and connectedness of the vital Roma musical tradition.