Roots of Fire: Je M’en vas Dans le Chemin, by David Bax

First things first. Abby Berendt Lavoi and Jeremey Lavoi‘s Roots of Fire delivers the main thing you absolutely need in a music documentary. The music. While too many such films interrupt the tunes with endless talking heads, telling you about the music instead of letting you listen to it, you are guaranteed to leave the Lavois’ movie familiar with–and, if you have taste, appreciating–Cajun music. From festivals to parties to just a regular night at the local watering hole, you will see it performed in all the places it continues to exist in present day Louisiana. You’ll know names like Jourdan Thibodeaux and Joel Savoy. You might even want to book a ticket and brush up on your square dancing skills.

It’s common practice with these kinds of documentaries to locate or even impose a narrative within the overview. And that’s how Savoy becomes a sort of protagonist, introducing us to the scene and the culture while also leading the charge to save it.

Roots of Fire presents us with a primer on Cajun culture, if a truncated and streamlined one; the whole move is under 90 minutes and much of that is musical performances. We learn how the Cajuns came to be, how American society at large attempted to snuff it out in the interest of assimilation, how it has survived and, if Savoy and his ilk win out, how it will continue. But the threat of its death, the Lavois argue, is very real.

Savoy differentiates between preservation and conservation. He doesn’t want to simple preserve Cajun culture, keeping it safe from the rest of the world, under glass and installed in a museum. He wants to conserve it for future use, including the possibility that it will continue to grow as its people and practitioners do with new developments in music and technology.

Surprisingly, one of the chief methods by which this music can stay alive in the public consciousness is the Grammys. Roots of Fire spends a considerable chunk of time documenting a dinner party–which, of course, turns into a jam session–among various Grammy nominees living and playing in and around the area of Lafayette, LA. Savoy is the host, naturally. In the major, pop and rock music categories, the Grammys have earned a reputation for being far out of touch, even as large scale awards-giving bodies go. But, among those struggling to keep Cajun and other regional roots music traditions alive, they are a bigger stage than anyone else is offering.

Roots of Fire spends much of its final act documenting the annual Cajun version of Mardi Gras. I remember this from an episode of HBO’s Treme where, instead of the New Orleans parade and bead parties, a bunch of white folks wore pointy hats and chased chickens all over the cold, dirty ground. It looked like a nightmare to me at the time and, honestly, it still kind of looks like a nightmare. But thanks to this documentary, I understand it better and I hope there are enough of them to keep doing it year after year.