Youssou N’dour: I Bring What I Love was shown at SXSW in a 35mm print. Director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi announced she’d brought it with her having last shown it in Burkina Faso three weeks ago, and it showed the wear-and-tear of having only one print to go around for a year: it was scratchy during the reel changes. But it was worth it: the doc had slow-burning visual texture and a sense of contextual place I don’t really look for in documentaries anymore. I expect this to be the last time in my life I see a documentary screened in a print at a festival, and it was a good note to go out on. As the story of a controversy, N’Dour takes its time: the first half gives you Senegalese musician superstar N’Dour’s normal routine, the second the fracas around his 2004 album Egypt. Vasarhelyi’s obviously a fan, and she has enough concert footage to show why she was drawn to N’Dour before the drama started, but N’Dour morphs into one of the more nuanced documentaries on modern Islam around.

Not that Vasarhelyi isn’t very clear on what the stakes are, or might initially appear to be: she throws in footage of the Twin Towers on fire to get that out of the way. But part of what’s refreshing about this film is how the whole issue of Islamic terrorism is completely avoided: this is a story about negotiating the norms of Islam in a country where 94% of the population is Sufi Muslim, arguably the most peaceable form. N’Dour is devout, but — until Egypt — his songs were politically didactic, bluntly instructing his listeners to work hard and follow the path of Stephen Biko. (He’s less than revelatory in interviews. Sample quote: “If we save the planet, all of us will benefit.” Yes.) Vasarhelyi has the live concert footage: musically, it’s not precisely my thing, but N’Dour’s a riveting performer, and you get a sense for why he has such a following, even where audiences can’t understand Wolof (hilariously, Robert Christgau shows up to tell him how awesome he is). Then the trouble starts: N’Dour records a series of devotional songs, confusing those who think a political singer shouldn’t come anywhere near devout matters. Worse yet, he releases it during Ramadan.

There’s no riots or violence, but N’Dour’s sales, for once, flatline. He goes abroad and receives passionate approval; he comes home and is torn apart in the papers. Nationalism trumps religion, though: when Egypt wins a Grammy, suddenly he’s a national hero once more, meeting with the president and lecturing schoolchildren. Vasarhelyi mostly avoids all the cliches of filming Africa. No dusty villages or impoverished rural people –– this is the urban Senegal. What Vasarhelyi gets bang-on is the way N’Dour adjusts his self-presentation wherever he is. Visiting his family, he’s in traditional garb, and the same goes when he represents Senegal at foreign concerts; when it doesn’t count, he wears globalized jeans. He contemplates what it means to be Muslim, and what it takes to represent it: is Sufism a recognizable form of Islam to the outside world? Is his devoutness communicated to his audience, and does he have the right to speak on behalf of his religion?

Vasarhelyi’s film is fascinating because it’s not really about N’Dour as a musician; it’s about negotiating internal religious schisms that make the Vatican look like a joke. While N’Dour presents religious songs to a religious country, in Europe and America he presents them to appreciative white audiences who have zero emotional connection or historical attachment to his songs of praise; they’re there for secular musical kicks. On tour, audiences have to meet the devout musicians halfway: remarkably, a pub in Dublin cheerfully ceases drinking so that they can play in an alcohol-free room. So I Bring What I Love is ultimately heartening, showing not just Muslims reconciling with themselves, but with the outside world. Seeing that in action, frankly, is more interesting than anything the film’s ostensible subject has to say, which is just fine.