Chris Flackett
The musician Roy Ayers once said that “the true beauty of music is that it connects people”. With Resynator, filmmaker Alison Tavel has given a warm and extremely personal body to this statement, creating a likeable and touching documentary in the process.
Tavel was only 10 weeks old when her father, musician Don Tavel, passed away tragically in a car crash. Her only connection in her childhood to her father were the stories her family told her about him, making Don, to her young mind, almost seem like a Superman; she is even told he invented the synthesizer.
However, when researching this fact for a fourth-grade presentation on the instrument’s history, she finds the creation of the synth credited to Robert Moog. No doubt, in reaction to the confusion caused by this discrepancy, Alison Tavel withdrew from thinking about her father and the truth of his life. That is, until, in her mid-twenties, Tavel begins to examine the past, starting with the instrument Don had created: the titular Resynator. What starts as a project to learn about the instrument and create awareness of it quickly becomes an unexpected journey into the truth of Tavel’s father’s life, and ultimately a way for Tavel to connect with her father in a way that she had never felt able to before.
What follows is a story that gently tells of some heavy secrets, and it does so admirably, not flinching from them, but presenting them without sensationalism, letting them just be. It’s a fair method to use when the subject of the documentary is not there to answer any comments made about them, and the film, through Alison, very much looks to understand Don with as little judgment as possible. As Alison herself says partway through the film, she needed to know the bad as well as the good to see her father as a whole person. It’s a very accepting attitude to take, and it’s to her credit.
From what is revealed, it would appear that Don Tavel was troubled in himself and there were issues he never resolved; you wonder if things would have been different if it had all occurred now, when our knowledge and care for mental illness, while not perfect, is better than it was at that time. What is striking is, for all that, nobody ever demonstrates any anger or bitterness at Don; it was clear that this was a magnetic person who was genuinely loved, whether he realised it or not, and he is still clearly very much missed.
One other thing all parties seem to agree on throughout the film: the Resynator itself is a work of absolute genius! Invented by Don Tavel and built by Don and others, the Resynator is a synthesiser that, instead of using a keyboard, allows other equipment such as electric guitars and microphones to be plugged into its hardware, allowing for the sounds of the instruments to be manipulated in incredible and creative ways. So, for example, a guitar could end up sounding like a trombone! Or a voice could sound like a throbbing bass. What a creatively freeing tool! Whether it could make me sing in tune is another matter, but we live in hope…
As a music nerd, I found the parts focusing on the Resynator itself fascinating. The Resynator certainly seems like it was ahead of its time, and part of the joy of watching Resynator is seeing such notable musicians and music makers like Mark Ronson, Peter Gabriel, Money Mark, Grace Potter and Jimmy Jam play around with the Resynator like kids in a candy store, full of glee and excitement, is a testament to the joy and expression that can be found in play and experimentation. If Don Tavel hadn’t experimented and lost himself in play, he wouldn’t have created the Resynator, and although it didn’t take off at the time, its rediscovery has allowed his daughter to make connections she may never have made otherwise—the biggest connection being with her father, of course.
Visually, Resynator offers little in the way of surprises in the way it presents itself. It doesn’t really play with the form, although the animation inserts from Danny Madden illustrate points raised in the film in a colourful, attractive way, such as when the descriptions of Don as a Superman are accompanied by an animation of the actual Superman flying through a city.
In a way, though, this is a churlish complaint. The actual story of the uncovering of Don Tavel’s life, allowing Alison to finally connect with her father, is a genuinely heartwarming story and one I genuinely felt moved by. Any playing with film form may have distracted from that. As it is, Resynator is a lovely documentary and a reminder of the power of music to connect people—even those we’ve lost and those we’ve never really known. May it continue to do so.
Resynator is now available on digital.
