Black and White in Colour: A Portrait of a Gypsy Singer

From the opening scenes of Romany gypsy singer Vera Bila belting out a love song in a huge rococo concert hall, it's clear that the filmmakers are struggling hard to show us why Vera deserves a documentary of her own. With a craggy, unrefined voice (but full of passion and life), Vera is emotionally volatile and demanding, smokes and gambles, and likes to go barefoot in winter. With her short, enormously corpulent frame draped in a concert gown of fire engine red damask, she looks like a major Christo project. How could one resist filming a documentary on such a force of nature? Despite more than a few cinematic rough edges, there is, in fact, enough in this overly-long piece to hold the attention and to make the time spent with Vera worthwhile. We're introduced to her rather overwhelmed husband ("I like my man so much that I trim his toenails with my teeth"). We meet the long-suffering, day laboring members of her band, and we follow the group as they schlep through the bleak Eastern European landscape from one small cabaret gig to another. We learn of the discrimination historically faced by gypsies, of Vera's hard road as a performer, and about her chronic money troubles. Interspersed between these sequences are a couple of weird, but fun MTV-style music videos featuring Vera and her group (in one, a slot machine spews out paper currency, which attaches itself to Vera's bountiful bulk). The story ends on a happy note, with coverage of Vera's triumphant concert in the tony Marais section of Paris, where the French give her a standing ovation (one wonders if they would have been as enthusiastic had they overheard a band member speculating on how much money could be made in selling the Eiffel Tower for scrap metal). An interesting but by no means essential addition to collections in music or Eastern European cultures, this is moderately recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (G. Handman)