Christy Garland’s documentary The Bastard Sing The Sweetest Song opens this Friday, January 18th at the Royal Cinema. It tells the story of Muscle. A man making a living in Georgetown, Guyana raising fighting cocks and songbirds, but he’s also trying to get his mother Mary off the booze. Mary’s a charming 75-year-old poet with a brilliant wit who loves to go for walks on the road, beg for money, and get drunk on “high wine”. Mary drinks to forget but she’s still able to recite by heart some of her lost poems to her family who listen with love and admiration. Muscle strives to lift his family out of poverty and into the middle class, but worries his mother will end up in hospital. He decides that the only way to protect her is to keep her locked her up in her room at the back of the house.
What may appear to be a story of a brutal, controlling son and a drunk, pathetic old woman, is actually the story of an incredibly courageous family fighting to rid themselves of the shackles of their past. Mary and Muscle’s efforts to live life on their own terms are comical, courageous, flawed, disturbing, loving and heart-breaking – just like many families.
I missed this film when it played at Hot Docs last year, so I’ll be sure to catch it this time around. For full scheduling and ticketing info, go to theroyal.to.