ONCE WERE BROTHERS – Directed by Daniel Rohrer

By R. Paul Dhillon

One of the great Things about attending film festivals is watching great movies and one of the best Canadian movies that played at 2019 Whistler Film Festival was Once Were Brothers - Robbie Robertson and the Band, a thoroughly entertaining musical journey depicting the life of an iconic Canadian artist.

The film takes us deep into the Canadian musical prodigy Robertson and his singular impact on Canadian-American music through his work with legendary artists like Bob Dylan, Ronnie Hawkins and his own legendary group The Band. 

More engaging and engrossing than a narrative drama, this feature length documentary is well made, taking the viewer on a ride from Robertson as a teen, picking up the guitar and getting schooled in his part native heritage (his mother was Canadian native Indian and father was a Jewish gangster) and forming a teen rock-n-roll band to opening for Hillbilly music king Ronnie Hawkins and the rest they say is history but what a great musical history. 

Robertson became a seminal figure in the new deep soul roots music both with his work with Dylan with whom he and his band mates travelled extensively in the US and Europe but significantly with his own aptly named The Band, which revolutionized American music with a brand new sound and lyrics, largely credited to Robertson, that told deep rootsy stories about the American heartland with folksy-rock-n-roll fusion that was all The Band’s own creation. 

It’s also truly a remarkable film about brotherhood, music, Americana and a man who was destined for musical greatness. 

Robertson, who’s a friend of legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese, also scores music for films and he did so for Scorsese’s latest masterpiece The Irishman. Scorsese and Robertson also teamed up on the iconic concert film The Last Waltz, which was the swan song for Robertson and The Band, his musical brothers, which is used as an ending for Once Were Brothers. 

Produced by Toronto-based White Pine Pictures and Imagine Films, the film is directed by 24-year-old Daniel Rohrer (who Robertson chose after initial director was not to his liking). Rohrer does not disappoint, building a beautiful, rich and complex portrait of Robertson, using a lot of archival footage with deeply layered B-roll that allows the viewer soak up an entertaining musical nostalgia. 

Feature documentaries are making a huge comeback and I have my own documentary Gone Are The Days is hitting the festival circuit and winning the Runner-Up Best Feature Documentary prize at the Jaipur International Film Festival on January 21, 2020. We also won an Award at the IMPACT DOCS Award recently.

Go support documentaries many of which are better than drama

R. Paul Dhillon is an award winning journalist and the editor of the South Asian LINK newspaper and founder-editor of the online DESIBUZZCanada and DESIBUZZbc publications. He is also a renowned filmmaker with over 40 production credits on documentaries and feature films. His recent feature romantic comedy THE FUSION GENERATION was released theatrically in August 2019. His feature documentary Gone Are The Days made it’s world premiere at the Jaipur International Film Festival on January 21, 2020 where it won the Runner-Up Best Feature Documentary prize. The film has also won an Award at the US-based IMPACT DOCS Award.