Song is filled with great beauty and moments of everyday life that show that director Michael Obert has a fine sense of the power of the quotidian... But Obert also slips in powerful critiques of Sarno with the lightest of touches — some so light they might be accidental.
Song from the Forest
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Germany · 2014
1h 38m
Director Michael Obert
Starring Louis Sarno, Samedi Mathurin Bokombe, Brad Connor, Jim Jarmusch
Genre Documentary
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25 years ago, American Louis Sarno heard a song on the radio and followed its melody into the Central Africa Jungle, where he stayed to record over 1000 hours of original BaAka music and raise his pygmy son, Samedi, in the BaAka community. Now, fulfilling an old promise, Louis takes Samedi to America.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The New York Times by Jon Caramanica
This nonjudgmental documentary moves between New York City and the rain forests of the Central African Republic, where Mr. Sarno primarily lives. Both places are tugs of war between abundance and lack.
Los Angeles Times by Michael Rechtshaffen
A strikingly poetic documentary that illustrates the push and pull of life's opposing forces.
The Hollywood Reporter by Neil Young
[A] likeably modest study of veteran, well-traveled American musicologist Louis Sarno.
A mesmerizing glimpse into Sarno’s search for a sub-Saharan Walden and the implications of that choice.
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