[yasr_overall_rating]
Mateo follows America’s most notorious gringo mariachi on his misadventures to Cuba.
Early in “Mateo,” we learn that the eponymous Mateo (née Matthew Stoneman) got into the world of mariachi music after a stint in jail. He was arrested for stealing, though what and how much was stolen is left out. It’s a startling revelation about our dweebish, soft-spoken subject, and it’s a warning that our initial impressions of Stoneman might have been misleading. But we barely learn who Stoneman was before prison. He played music before being locked up, but his connection to mariachi and Spanish culture came from his time in prison, so we don’t know what style or styles he played before he was locked up. That being said, he’s become proficient enough at Spanish music (whatever you ultimately think of Stoneman as a person, there’s no denying his talent as a musician) that he could have tried to hide the fact that he’d been in prison and just portrayed himself as a lifelong devotee of the genre, and probably gotten away with the deceit. If he’s so reluctant to talk about it, why say anything?
The documentary’s hook is that Stoneman, who’s white, is a fixture in the mariachi music scene. It’s an obvious hook, albeit a good one. But we don’t spend much time ruminating on the racial divide between Stoneman and his calling. If anything, he’s more at home when he’s an outsider than when he’s, well, at home. He’s comfortable on the streets of Cuba, chatting with locals, joking with strangers, and going out, but when he’s home in Los Angeles, he’s basically a hermit. He talks to people in the mariachi scene, but when he’s not playing music or looking for work, he withdraws into himself. Are we witnessing the monastic devotion of an artist who only cares about his work, or is this indicative of some deeper quirk in Stoneman’s character? It seems like the latter, but we don’t dig deeply enough into Stoneman’s psyche to be sure. “Mateo” finds hints that its subject is driven by something more troubling than the need to make music, but doesn’t solve the mystery it’s chasing.
It looks like he’s barely eking out a living, but Stoneman has had success in his field that most people will never touch. He spends the bulk of the film’s middle completing a long-gestating album that he’s been recording in Cuba, he gets press stateside, and by the end of the film, he’s developed a following in Japan, and he travels to Tokyo to perform and give interviews. Stoneman doesn’t seem to care about material success, but there’s a restlessness in him that he can’t seem to sate. We have archetypes of massive creative success, and we’re familiar with the “starving artist,” but “Mateo” catches an artist in the liminal gap between stardom and failure. He makes his living with music, but he’s barely hanging on. He produces a CD that gets international attention, but it takes seven years and his own money to complete. As a study of the sacrifices that can accompany working as a performer, “Mateo” is compelling, albeit occasionally depressing.
“Mateo” is framed around Stoneman’s struggles as a musician, but glimpses of Stoneman’s personal life are among the most fascinating parts of the documentary. Unfortunately, they’re also some of the most frustrating. Early on, the family he stays with in Cuba chides him for not settling down and finding a wife, but he demurs. But this refusal to settle down might be motivated by more than the demands of his career. We see Stoneman ogle Cuban women, we watch his interactions with two girlfriends, and he seeks out areas known for hosting prostitutes, allegedly looking for a particular woman. The mystery woman never gets a payoff, which is disappointing, and one subject where the filmmakers really should have pushed Stoneman harder for details. Maybe they did, and he didn’t budge, but considering how much we do see (he did let them oust him as a cheater, after all), it’s hard to believe they couldn’t get even a little information about this woman he’s chasing, and why he’s so desperate to find her.
Stoneman’s relationship with his parents is also confusing, and somehow manages to reflect more poorly on him than his behavior towards women in Cuba (by the way, Stoneman only seems to exhibit a libido in Cuba – in the United States and in Japan, we see nothing of this behavior). His parents say that their son hasn’t spoken to them in years, and later in the film Stoneman returns to his hometown, avoids them, and opts to stay in a motel over spending nights at their house. The segments with his parents feel superfluous, and seem like something Stoneman wanted to include so the world could witness his deliberate separation from his family. But unfortunately, again, we only get hints, not answers.
“Mateo” doesn’t really address the novelty of Stoneman being the “gringo mariachi,” but that’s the right call; it’s a one-note novelty that’s dwarfed by other, juicier issues. He may not fully reveal himself, but Stoneman gives away enough to let us revel in just how enigmatic he is – his triumphs feel inspirational, but the process is pitiful; his loneliness can be viewed as the nobly paid price for art, or as the byproduct of selfishness. Juxtapositions abound, and engage, but we never have enough information to reach a verdict on Stoneman, reducing a portrait of the subject to a rough sketch.
Available now on DVD
