I’m focusing on documentaries this year for my local film discussion series, and we kicked things off on Thursday with Wim Wenders’ musical documentary Buena Vista Social Club.

As he follows the lives of Ibrahim Ferrer, Compay Segundo, and other legends of Cuban jazz, Wim Wenders works with great elegance and subtlety. I always sense that what matters most to Wenders is his commitment to the truth: not to the story line, not to some heavy-handed theme that imposes meaning on the raw material of human experience, but just to the truth of his subjects’ lives.

Bonus for the audience: hours of wonderful Cuban jazz.