Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Documentaries can take hours of film, edit out the best parts and add scoring and effects to create a grand composition worthy of the big screen. Soul Power is not one of these documentaries. Instead, it is raw, unpolished B-roll footage that carries its own weight for a full 93 minutes of soul.

The genesis of the project dates back to 1974 when director Leon Gast signed on to film Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier’s famous “Rumble in the Jungle.” To be included in the production was footage from Zaire ‘74: a three-day music festival that brought together the best African and African-American musicians of the time. Headliners included James Brown, Bill Withers, Celia Cruz and B.B. King.

The finished product,When We Were Kings, which centered around the boxing match, only included a sampling of footage from the concert. Rather than let all that film go to waste, director Jeffrey Levy-Hinte pieced together Soul Power from the unused footage.

Soul Power takes a refreshingly au natural approach to documentary filmmaking. The entire experience is very anti-Hollywood in its lack of preachiness, heavy editing or post-production work. In essence, it’s like watching your family’s home movies, if your family members were the greatest soul artists of the 1970s. The photography is warm and grainy in a beautifully analogue way, rife with lens flare and solarization. This overall aesthetic, coupled with the bell-bottomed subjects of the film, help to make the film feel like a snapshot of the mid-70s.

Younger viewers (children of the 80s and 90s) may especially enjoy the film as it affords them real, unadulterated insight into the oft-parodied or reimagined world of the 1970s. Soul Power’s finest achievement is putting the audience into a press conference with the famous Don King, or eating lunch with B.B. King (who in a moment of ominous foreshadowing is eating syrupy bacon and heavily-sugared coffee). The most exciting moment of the movie was a scene from the plane trip to Zaire where Celia Cruz and her band plus many other artists on the trip were impromptu jamming from their seats in the crowded cabin — a performance even more live than the live itself.

Comic relief in the film is provided by the great Muhammad Ali, whose endlessly flowing ramblings never cease to amaze. Yes, major motion pictures such as Ali have recreated similar scenes with millions of dollars in costuming and production, but there is something special and personal in watching the real thing.

Beyond all the notes on filmmaking lies the music at the heart of the film. The actual performance footage (which is sadly few and far between) is stunning to both the eyes and the ears. Bill Withers’ vocal sustains have the power to suspend time and motion throughout the theater. Celia Cruz’s harmonies are flawless. Best of all is James Brown — watching him sing and dance in living color erases any and all doubts that the Brown was the true Godfather of Soul.

While the candid nature of the movie is generally admirable, the major flaw of the production is that it almost entirely lacks any greater meaning and doesn’t evoke any reaction beyond toe-tapping. The goals of the concert organizers — to embody the blackness movement and African pride — are left entire implicit. The filmmakers break the golden rule of “show, don’t tell” by occasionally including a quasi-profound speech on blackness and the significance of the event as told by Ali. The key to the symbolism of the concert is the inclusion of black artists from Africa and America. However, only one major performance by an African artist is used in the film.

The film does not convincingly show the harmony between the roots of African music and the music of African-Americans. On the other hand, perhaps the images of Zairians dancing joyously to James Brown is all the proof needed.