Viramundo

This enlightening musical odyssey shows people across the southern hemisphere using music to reclaim the cultural identity that was suppressed during colonial times. Our guide is Gilberto Gil, the Brazilian musician who drew on Beatles-inspired psychedelia and indigenous rhythms to refine his sound in the 1960s, and survived political persecution and exile to become Minister of Culture under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Swiss director Pierre-Yves Borgeaud flecks the action with biographical information, but this quickly drifts off at tangents, as a carnival performance in Gil's home state of Bahia is followed by meetings with rocker-turned-politician Peter Garrett and Aboriginal community leader Patrick Dodson in Australia, members of the Miagi Youth Orchestra in Johannesburg and South African activist-singer Vusi Mahlasela. At each stop, Gil listens with enthusiasm and celebrates a common heritage that he channels into the closing number on the Amazonian Isla de Flores. The movie is often heady, and occasionally woolly, but always enjoyable.