Toronto – The Toronto International Film Festival is in full swing now. It’s a great opportunity to check out movies from all over the globe. You can watch films before they are available to the general public. Often you get to do it in the presence of the actors and the director, and then ask them questions afterwards. Not bad for $15-20 a pop (if you buy a pack, and don’t go see the uber special gala presentations that is).

For the stargazers among you, this is also a great time to look for your favourite celebrities hovering around the city. Now is the best time to grab a latte in Yorkville and look for stars. Then, when you notice them, you can pretend that you barely noticed them and it’s no big deal. This will make you feel good and lead you to believe that you are on the same level as the Dustin Hoffman’s, or even the Richard Gere’s of the world. I swear this could be an entry on Stuff White People Like.

Anyway, the first film up for review is Soul Power. A documentary about a music festival held in Africa in 1974 that was to culminate with a boxing match. The year was 1974, and the festival was in Africa. The place was Kinhasa, and the boxers were Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. The mix in question was soul music and boxing.

The story starts off firmly in documentary mode. We see the musicians getting organized, the organizers getting the musicians, the planners organizing the organizers, and the musicians playing the organs. At this point we don’t know if everything will actually work out on schedule. Then about halfway through the documentary, the concert starts and the gears shift from documentary to music film with loose ends practically dangling off the silver screen.

The saving grace of this doc is the footage. It’s simply spectacular. Highlights for me include a relatively young B.B. King playing The Thrill is Gone, as well as a virile and mustachio’ed James Brown doing his thing. This documentary may lack resolution and a storyline of the concert know as Zaire ’74, but it certainly delights with fantastic music footage from an amazing concert. Time well spent for soul music lovers.

Soul Power: 3.5/5
Soul Power Footage: 4.5/5

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