"GETTING IT BACK: THE STORY OF CYMANDE" (2024)

Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande

Directed by Tim MacKenzie-Smith
Featuring Cymande, Vincent Mason, Craig Charles, Mark Speer, Jim James, Mark Ronson
Running time 1 hour, 29 minutes
Currently unrated
In theaters April, 2024

by "Doc" Hunter Bush, contributor & podcast czar

Cymande are a band you likely aren't aware you've heard before. They're a secret handshake; if you recognize the samples within songs by the likes of The Fugees, Wu-Tang Clan, De La Soul, Gang Starr, MF Doom, Heavy D & the Boyz, Akhenaton, Dan the Automator, Queen Latifah and many more, you're in the club. According to DJs of the era, interviewed in this doc, the bridge from the Cymande track Bra was such a ubiquitous part of the 1980s East Coast hiphop and club scene that people just assumed it originated from that area, at that time. But you know what they say about making assumptions.

Cymande formed in 1971 in Brixton, a district in South London, England. The number of band members fluctuated early on, but there are nine in the core group, all of them coming from the diaspora community in London and bringing influences from their home cultures. All were self-taught, and everything they might lack in technical ability, they made up for in heart and communication of an ethos. The name 'Cymande' comes from a calypso song and means 'dove', symbolizing peace and unity.

This is essentially all of the information on the formation of the band that you're given in Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande. Director Tim MacKenzie-Smith seems more interested in exploring the band's legacy and their enduring reach, as well as their comeback more than just rehashing facts you could glance through in a Wikipedia article. Within those boundaries, the focus seems to be on the joy and love of performing that the band feel. MacKenzie-Smith makes liberal use of extreme close-ups to show the emotion playing across various members' faces.

After recording their self-titled first album in 1972, the band languished in relative obscurity in the U.K. due in no small part to racism and British nationalism, while their singles and album were charting in the United States. A series of U.S. tour dates followed, during which time they recorded three subsequent albums. Upon their return to the U.K., finding that the British music press still ignored them, they decided to take a break that lasted until 2006. They wouldn't reform in a more permanent way until 2012.

During that initial 34 year gap, while race riots broke out in London, DJs in the U.S. were finding Cymande (the aforementioned track Bra) and alternating between 2 copies of their self-tiled LP to make the bridge on Bra last as long as the audience could take it before they popped. Watching musicians and music lovers talk about music will always be infectious to me. Whether they're eloquent, perfectly distilling a song's essence, or overwhelmed by their personal appreciation, I'll always enjoy hearing it.

Getting It Back isn't a one-and-done primer for Cymande, but it seems more concerned with making sure your interest in them is piqued enough that you'll look into them more on your own. The message of their music is one that wants for a better world. In that world, you wouldn't need a documentary like this to tell you who Cymande are. You'd already know.

GETTING IT BACK: THE STORY OF CYMANDE hits theaters in May.

RIVER (Third Window Films)

River
Written by Makoto Ueda
Directed by Junta Yamaguchi
Starring Riko Fujitani, Manami Honjô, Gôta Ishida
Running time 1 hour and 26 minutes
MPAA rating currently unrated
On DVD, Blu-ray, and digital February 12th from Third Window Films

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, contributor and Podcast Czar

Synopsis:
“A traditional Kyoto inn is looping two minutes at a time!” That was all I had to go on when I was lucky enough to see this at last year’s Fantasia Fest. I was unfamiliar with director Junta Yamaguchi, writer Makoto Ueda, or their previous “tiny loop” film Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020), so that one sentence was all I knew. You’ll often find the old “go into this movie knowing as little as possible” cliché trotted out when a movie has a twist. River (2023) doesn’t have one, but by going in knowing almost nothing, the film was able to completely and permanently charm me.

But if you’d like a little more information: Everyone in the immediate vicinity of the Fujiya inn is stuck in a two minute time loop. They’re all aware of it, but no one has any idea how or why it’s happening, or how to stop it. There are no “fate of the world” stakes, just interpersonal ones: a budding relationship, two old friends catching up, a writer’s blocked author with a tight deadline - they’re all stuck to either thrive or flourish in this new situation.

What Features Make it Special:

• All-region DVD & Blu-ray
• Interview with director Junta Yamaguchi
• Hour-long making of feature
• Trailer

Why You Need to Add it to Your Media Library:
If all this disc included was a (region-free) copy of River, I’d still recommend it. I just want to get that out of the way. Even whenever it finds its way to streaming, a film like River is never going to be the first thing that your streaming service of choice suggests when you log on. It’s entirely possible that it would get lost in the digital shuffle, so being able to have it at my fingertips is a h-u-g-e selling point for me.

But. Beyond that, I also really enjoyed the bonus features. The making of feature is an hour long which, I’ll admit, I initially balked at - River is a small concept with small stakes taking place in one location, how can you fill a making of feature that’s ⅔ the length of the film itself? - but it perfectly reflects the feeling of the finished film. The assortment of on-set interviews with the cast & crew show how they all really cared about the project, and each other, and worked very hard to create this little gem of a movie.

In the interview with director Yamaguchi, he mentions that the Fujiya inn (where they filmed) is prone to swift and drastic shifts in weather, and that the script needed to be adjusted to emotionally fit the weather whenever possible, and that filming was delayed by a record snowfall that cost them 4 of their 10 shooting days. In the making of, you not only see more of this snowfall (which is absolutely gorgeous, btw) but also the cast & crew all chipping in to get the location cleaned up and shoveled to make it possible to continue filming. It’s very sweet.

For anyone who may be familiar with Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and curious how River differs from it, Yamaguchi describes Beyond as being focused on “...logic (and) time” while River is more focused on “...people (and) emotion. Both River and Beyond before it are small productions with big hearts, and I was very glad to hear that Yamaguchi and writer Ueda have plans to continue making films (their creative partnership stems from the Europe Kikaku theater group, which they both still work with). I’ll be saving space on my shelves for them.