Rating: 
Summary: Genghis Blues
Review: This is the story of two men who are truly inspirational. Few documentaries evoke the emotion you experience when viewing this film. The film changed the way I view the world.
Rating:
Summary: Stranger than fiction - absolutely fascinating!
Review: This movie was recommended to me during a local film festival, and I went along not really knowing what to expect. From the outset, I was captured by the humanity of it all - a miracle of the media - blind muzo Paul Pena, sitting in his LA apartment, listening to his short-wave radio, little knowing that he would later end up winning prizes in the very unusual art form he was hearing for the first time. The movie then follows him to Tuva in north-west Asia, home of the throat-singers, where he makes new friends and learns more about the skill involved, all the while preparing for the annual competition. It's hard not to be impressed by what you hear - the sounds of throat-singing (and the impressive vocal harmonics which result), combined with Pena's more natural blues influences. Well worth a look, even if it's just for the story alone!
Rating:
Summary: pure genius
Review: Where the heck is Tuva? Some of my Russian American friends didn't even know. It's a small autonomous region in Russia just north of Mongolia with an almost Scrabble word name for a capital: Kyzyl. And what is throat singing? One person, one throat, singing four notes simultaneously. Now imagine yourself learning throat singing...from something you heard on a shortwave radio late one night...when you're blind and you live in San Francisco by yourself ...and just to start learning the words, let alone the technique, you have to translate one word at a time from Tuvan to Russian to English to Braille...and you learn the technique well enough to enter a throat singing contest...in Tuva. This is a BIG story which could be almost a cliche but is most decidedly not: a story of the triumph of the human spirit, deep friendship, perseverance against overwhelming odds, adventure, commitment, teamwork, dedication, agape...all with a little National Geographic thrown in - much is filmed against the stunning scenery of Tuva - a kind of modern day "Lost Horizons." I saw the movie at the instigation of some musician friends. We shed tears during at least half the movie - when we left the theatre, we saw nary a dry eye. Oh...and the music is killer.
Rating:
Summary: Against All Odds
Review: Where the heck is Tuva? Some of my Russian American friends didn't even know. It's a small autonomous region in Russia just north of Mongolia with an almost Scrabble word name for a capital: Kyzyl. And what is throat singing? One person, one throat, singing four notes simultaneously. Now imagine yourself learning throat singing...from something you heard on a shortwave radio late one night...when you're blind and you live in San Francisco by yourself ...and just to start learning the words, let alone the technique, you have to translate one word at a time from Tuvan to Russian to English to Braille...and you learn the technique well enough to enter a throat singing contest...in Tuva. This is a BIG story which could be almost a cliche but is most decidedly not: a story of the triumph of the human spirit, deep friendship, perseverance against overwhelming odds, adventure, commitment, teamwork, dedication, agape...all with a little National Geographic thrown in - much is filmed against the stunning scenery of Tuva - a kind of modern day "Lost Horizons." I saw the movie at the instigation of some musician friends. We shed tears during at least half the movie - when we left the theatre, we saw nary a dry eye. Oh...and the music is killer.
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