- Director
- Ahmir-Khalib Thompson
- Rating
- n/a
- Running Time
- 117 minutes
- Release Date
- n/a
Overall Score
Rating Summary
This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Sundance Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.
Beloved member of The Roots and the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon cast-member “Questlove” is makes his directorial debut with the buzz-worthy documentary Summer of Soul. 1969 was a cornerstone year in American history for numerous reasons, one of which being that summer the infamous music festival known as Woodstock took place. Woodstock may have been extensively covered in media over the years, but what many people don’t know is that a different music festival took place the same summer, only 100 miles away. This event was known as the Harlem Cultural Festival, which highlighted many prolific Black musicians and amassed an audience of over 300,000 people. It was discovered recently that the festival was filmed and the footage had been sitting in a basement for over 50 years.
Questlove is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to music history and particularly in relation to African-American culture, so its no surprise that he felt compelled to direct this film. As someone who is very passionate about music, the idea of another prolific festival that took place simultaneously with Woodstock not having been covered in the media is absolutely fascinating. However, the film did not offer as much as expected. The biggest issue with Summer of Soul is its ambitious nature being helmed by a first-time director. Questlove knows his stuff when it comes to music and history though in terms of filmmaking, he definitely has room to grow.
Summer of Soul features unseen footage from the festival restored by Questlove himself, as well as interviews with some of the musicians who performed at the festival. While these elements of the film are fascinating and enthralling, Questlove attempts to tackle related historical events to provide in depth context, inventively making the film feel bloated and lessening the excitement of the restored footage. The footage itself could use some touch-ups in terms of colorization and sound restoration, but otherwise it is enthralling to watch.
With a few re-edits and some enhancement of the festival footage, this could be a genuinely great documentary that is essential for all music lovers. It is very possible Summer of Soul could be re-edited before being released to the public, but judging elusively by the cut shown here, it is fascinating at points, but is unfortunately bloated and unfocused.
*still courtesy of Sundance*
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