“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”
– Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971).
All families have myths and legends — sometimes it’s stories that seem generational (“walked uphill both ways to school”), sometimes it’s stories that are specific to a time/place within a family. For Alison Tavel, she grew up her whole life hearing stories about her father, Don Tavel, who died in a car accident 10 weeks after her birth, how he was a talented musician who played with the likes of Stevie Wonder and B.B. King, how he was a brilliant inventor and was responsible for creating the synthesizer. But how well can you know someone when all you hear are the stories colored by time and distance, filtered through a desire to give a child the best possible version of a lost parent? Making the leap from music video director and music coordinator to feature documentary director with Resynator, Alison invites audiences to join her as she uncovers a working model of Don’s synthesizer prototype, named Resynator, and, through the process of restoring it to working order, embarks on an introspective journey of Don’s past, developing a relationship with her father for the first time.
A scene from Alison Tavel’s documentary RESYNATOR. Photo courtesy of Resynator, LLC.
If you’ve seen the trailer for Resynator, there’s a sense that the film is replete with famous musicians trying out the previously “lost” synthesizer. This is true to a degree, but it’s also a misrepresentation of what the documentary is. Now, trailers are meant to be teases; things which give audiences a sense of what the film is about without (hopefully) giving away the ghost. This trailer operates under this presumption, keeping close what the film is truly about rather than what it seems. The trailer suggests that the documentary is about utilizing the Resynator, specifically exploring Don’s legacy and Alison’s relationship with him by putting the device in the hands of people who can best utilize or explain it, such as Grace Potter, Peter Gabriel, Gotye, Money Mark, and others. Of the 96-minute runtime, this makes up a small fraction, though it is no less potent an element within the scope of what the documentary reveals itself to be: a lost connection repaired.
L-R: Alison Tavel, Grace Potter, and Eric Valentine in Alison Tavel’s documentary RESYNATOR. Photo courtesy of Resynator, LLC.
There’s a rawness and intimacy that courses through Resynator in the way that is presents the intertwined paths of Alison and her father. As with a song whose lyrics speak to you though written by a different hand in a different time or place, Resynator strikes true, leaving an open audience in shambles as we witness a reclamation occur. Music has a way of bringing people together, to share in song and sound, to dance, to play, and Alison’s story is no different in the way that music is in the connective tissue between a father she’s never known and the creation he never got to see grow past an idea. Though her story is unique to herself, the way she structures it, the way that the mysteries are answered, speak to universal concepts of familial discord and complexity that anyone can relate to. In the film, Alison’s grandmother, Kitty, says (and this is paraphrased) that she would tell her kids that any good they did that resulted in joy was shared by the family, but so was the shame from any bad. While one can read that as suggesting that both joy and shame are evenly distributed among the family, thereby making it a lighter load for the person at the center, there is another interpretation that speaks to a familiar familial concept: your successes are ours and your failures bring us shame. How hard it must be to exist within such a framework wherein one is judged solely by how they represent the family and not by being who they are as an individual? This is the question that echoes on the edges of the film, following Alison as she starts with what’s in front of her, following any thread that she can tug.
Seeing as Alison is in the music industry herself, let’s break down her film from here into three parts we’ll call Opener, Supporting Act, Headliner.
In the Opener, Alison introduces herself, her father, and the easy to discover parts of him — the stories that are eagerly provided by family and friends or by individuals who have been touched by the Donald Louis Tavel Memorial Fund at his Alma Mater the University of Indiana or utilized the Donald Tavel Arts and Technology Research Center, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). This section builds up the legend of Don while giving us a sense of Alison from childhood to now. This establishes them as individuals, estranged by time and circumstance. With a mixture of animated sequences and in-person interviews, the audience joins Alison as she formulates a version of her father in her mind, recognizing that he’s just a shape, an empty specter, due to all the missing pieces that appear with each new incredible story.
With the finding of the Resynator, the Supporting Act section begins, shifting from a strictly narrow exploration of her father’s life and into an investigation of his work. It’s our luck that Alison is not as well-versed in the technological side of the music industry and the mechanics of how her father’s machine works are so foreign that speaking with those more knowledgeable isn’t just about giving us information but her gaining some, too. Documentaries are often about discovery and this is the section where the true intention of Resynator appears, to the surprise of Alison herself. By working on the Resynator with former Don collaborator Mike Beigel, we join Alison in learning about how this specific synthesizer works, as well as its history — an aspect that requires going beyond the famous headlines of her father and really digging into who he was as a person. If the legend of Don Tavel as the creator of the synthesizer is true, why is Robert Moog credited? Why are there no known users of the Resynator? These questions only generate silence in the Opener, whereas Alison’s tenacity in the Supporting Act shines light on the shadows, filling the negative spaces with recollections and theories that lead to answers Alison’s never been privy to before. Here, Resynator shifts again, as the specter solidifies some and Alison’s own role within the documentary adjusts to reflect this change.
Alison Tavel in Alison Tavel’s documentary RESYNATOR. Photo courtesy of Resynator, LLC.
With the crowd warmed up and ready to rock, the Headliner takes the stage and Alison’s new mission begins. This is where the majority of musicians from the trailer appear, though Grace Potter has appeared more than once in her capacity as Alison’s work colleague and best friend. It’s incredible fun seeing the musicians tinker and toy with the Resynator, talent of their caliber able to utilize Don’s tool in a way that Alison, as a non-musician, cannot. These scenes give the sense of vicarious experience for Alison, but also transform her from truth-seeker to the manifestation of Don, bringing forward his past desire to life. In these scenes, it doesn’t matter what music the performers create, it only matters how the engage with it and whether or not it sparks joy and creativity within them. Due to the structure of the documentary, these moments feel like success, as though we share in what Alison’s achieved. Through this section, a revelation arises like a second or third encore at your favorite show, that speaks to the relationship of all children with their parents and how all the choices we make as individuals are based upon that relationship. By taking us slowly through the life of Don and how Alison’s own life was affected by the lack of Don, Resynator displays the hidden resonant impact of generational trauma and how healing only matters if one is willing to confront the whole truth, the good and the bad, in order to dispel myth and embrace reality.
Director Alison Tavel. Photo Credit: Kelly Elaine Garthwaite. Photo courtesy of SXSW and Resynator, LLC.
Alison proves herself to be a proper raconteur as she invites the audience on her journey of self-discovery through the exploration of a father she’s never known. She turns the camera onto herself throughout, not to capture a hollow sense of worth or clout, but so as to memorialize these moments in a way that her father never could. To capture the whole experience of this quest so that there’s no room for mythology or legend to arise; preferring that the cringe and the joyful be captured forever, the legacy being the truth. Along the way, Alison makes an excellent case for legacy redefined as the torch that’s passed along rather than carried to an determined end by a lone individual. To this end, Resynator is quiet and contemplative despite the persistent rhythm and noise of the tunes and tones echoing from the past into present.
Screening during SXSW 2024.
In select theaters beginning November 13th, 2024.
Available on digital December 13th, 2024.
For more information, head either to the official Resynator SXSW webpage or documentary website.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
Share this:
Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
Leave a Reply