A Song for Cesar, attempts to recast Chavez as a transcendent historical figure and an ordinary individual. Co-directors Andres Alegria and Abel Sanchez successfully achieve this balance by making viewers aware of the role of art in shaping Chavez’s personal life, and the role artists played in the United Farm Workers and The Campesino Movement’s demands for dignity and fair wages.

Stories like these humanize Chavez and make the film less an exercise in stilted history and more of an entertaining historical narrative with a musical heartbeat.