On the road again
Gypsy Caravan a stand-out documentary about a Romanian band’s nomadic way of life
By Beth Capper
Published: September 4th, 2007 | 5:39pm
"Most Americans believe the clichés about gypsies," says Johnny Depp in Gypsy Caravan, director Jasmine Dellal's magnificent documentary about the music and culture of Romany gypsies, or “rom,” as the film's protagonists prefer to call themselves.
Depp is interviewed because of his friendship with Romanian band Taraf de Haidouks, one of five gypsy bands packed into a bus for a U.S. cross-country tour spanning six weeks of sold-out concerts, dubbed "Gypsy Caravan" by its operators. Featuring a lively group of individuals from Spain, Macedonia, India, and Romania, Caravan dissects the performers — through their on-the-road camaraderie and mischief and in their respective homelands — to try to dispel some myths about Romany culture.
Gypsy Caravan begins with a startling performance from
Macedonia's "Gypsy Queen" Esma Redzepova, who tells a journalist in a phone interview that she makes "traditional gypsy music, without assimilation" and that her mother was "in all the flamenco encyclopedias." The award-winning Redzepova has been playing Romany music since her teens, confirmed later in the film by some archival footage from Macedonian TV featuring Redzepova as a stunning young woman, already on her meteoric rise to Romany stardom.
In the tradition of direct cinema and with the occasional aid of veteran filmmaker Albert Maysles, Dellal takes viewers on a trans-world tour of Romany culture, weaving a fascinating tapestry of stunning live performances and intimate interviews. We visit Harish, a drag queen and dancer for Rajasthani group Maharaja, who tells how he began dancing when both of his parents died and he found himself with a family to feed; Ezma Redzepova in her apartment in beautiful Macedonia, who adopted 47 children when she found out she couldn't conceive, teaching them all the intricacies of Romany music; Taraf de Haidouks, who supports an entire village through their music back in Romania; and Antonio El Pipa, at his Flamenco school in Cadiz, Spain. Dellal rightly doesn't force a narrative on her subjects but instead follows the roads in their stories as they bend.
Most people are familiar with gypsy music in its watered-down form, through the gypsy-punk style of Gogol Bordello or the indie rock references of Beirut. Gypsy Caravan offers the music to us untarnished and in its raw, original, and disparate forms, whether it be an Indian Raga, a Spanish Flamenco Troupe or a Romanian brass band.
If, as Depp says, Americans do believe the worst about gypsies, then Dellal's film will certainly go a ways toward changing their minds.
Issue #35
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