Strings of Soul

I'm a hopeless sucker for any musical instrument that's plucked, bowed, or strummed (letting me browse in guitar shops is dangerous, just ask my wife and daughter). Imagine, then, my initial enthusiasm on being introduced here to the bandura: a fabulous-looking Eastern European instrument possessing anywhere between 20 and 65 strings that sounds something like the offspring of kinky sex between a zither, a lute, and a harp. The bandura seems to have hit the charts with a bullet in the royal courts of 13th and 14th century Russia (and was particularly favored by the Cossacks, who developed a unique repertoire for the instrument; apparently, when they weren't conducting pogroms). A distinct class of itinerant bandura musicians, the kobzari, arose to play and sing these epic ballads, until the 1930s, at which time, kindly Uncle Joe Stalin seems to have summarily wiped a large portion of them out as part of his attempt to squash Ukrainian nationalism. Strings of Soul briefly introduces the viewer to the current bandura revival (which seems to be centered in Toronto and environs), to classical bandura styles, and to new directions in bandura playing, but while the brief snippets of playing are lovely (although I don't know if I could stand an entire evening of the instrument's relentlessly high-strung voice), the sappy, “impressionistic” visuals that accompany these pieces ain't. Included in the featured bandura new wave is the brilliant player Roman Hrynkiv. In one segment Hrynkiv trades fours with guitarist Al Di Meola, an erstwhile straight-ahead jazzman who seems to have slid precipitously into aimless Kenny G territory. The result of this meeting is akin to eating a meal of borscht and Cheez Whiz. An explicable winner of the U.S. International Film and Video Festival's best music documentary award, Strings of Soul is not a necessary purchase. Aud: C, P. (G. Handman)