Music documentaries produced by brand managers of the musician have an upper limit on their entertainment value. Bad ones come off condescending, and even the good ones are more art pieces than anything else. The Boy From Medellin has an ace in the hole however: Matthew Heineman, the director of one of the best documentaries of the 2010s, Cartel Land. Heineman finds a few interesting inroads into J Balvin’s story that make this concert doc less concert and more doc, hence making it a better movie for the audience Balvin hopes sees it.
Like the ignorant US citizen than I am, I missed the impact Balvin had been leaving on my own life, crafting amazing bops like Mi Gente and RITMO. Jose Balvin rise to fame out of the streets of Medellin, Colombia. After a brief stint in Miami, he came back home and took his reggaetón roots to the people, and became a sensation in Latin America and eventually, the world. His documentary takes place at the end of his 2019 World Tour, closing in a giant football stadium in his hometown in 7 days.
The Boy From Medellin is produced by Scooter Braun, who manages J. Balvin, so you know right away we’re not getting some deep, objective character study. Many of the beats in the documentary resemble other music docs: Balvin goes into some of his personal demons, shows himself dealing with anxiety/depression on occasion, and introduces potential roadblocks to his concert that amplify that anxiety. The music scenes are dutifully huge and joyous affairs, featuring the Balvin discography. Balvin gives us some of his weird personality traits: hair design and candle functions are big winners here. And like a good manager, Braun focuses large chunks of the documentary on how good Balvin is to his fans. He’s always taking extra time to take pictures with them, including taking an hour or 2 to leave a concert in a car because he’s rolling down a window doing celebrity drive bys. Approachable? Exciting? Human? Likeable? All of the above.
But it’s not the boy that makes The Boy from Medellin special: it’s Medellin. More specifically, the country of Colombia. In 2019 through today, Colombia is going through all sorts of political uprising related to the income inequality that’s been building in the country, making necessary goods/services much harder to afford for normal people. Heineman, the director, frames the entire Balvin documentary through this lens leading up to the Concert Tour capping concert in Medellin. You might think this might make J. Balvin’s “problems” seem trite and superficial initially. But Heineman’s framing makes Balvin’s problems much more relatable and ubiquitous than other music documentaries. At the time, Balvin and his managers were thinking of cancelling the concert because police in his country killed a protester, Dilan Cruz. Obviously the possible cancellation would give any musician anxiety, but in this case it’s bigger for Balvin: the concert was his attempt to show how much he loves his city and country apolitically, which is now impossible because of Cruz’s death. The doc then becomes less about what these docs are usually about (will people love my new music?), but more about will I choose to do something with my platform and power to help others or stay on the sidelines and increase my personal fame/fortune? Those questions every person has to answer at some point, making Balvin’s conflict much more relatable but magnified because of his stardom. There’s really no doubt where he’s going to go with his choice, but Heineman’s framing makes the story much more interesting and makes Balvin’s doc stand out among the other ones out there.
The Boy From Medellin should be a template other artists, especially non Beyonce/Taylor Swift tier musicians, should follow. In order to help boost their popularity, their doc should focus on their service towards the people they love/care about, and how all their decision making is framed through that lens. That doc can then take someone like me who would refer to Mi Gente as “that song by that guy” and change it to “that song by that Medellin guy,” which I think J Balvin might be ok with…