(Spain, 1981)
The dancers and musicians arrive,
they warm up, they do a run-through of this very concise adaptation—Lorca—and
they’re done. It’s all very simple,
efficient, even unvarnished—the more to bring out the fiery passion of the
whole thing. Is that an Iberian
stereotype? If we go by the conviction
and authority with which those stereotypes are played out, not a bit. It would seem that fiery passion is a main
ingredient of Flamenco, as well as an actual part of actual Spain, whether you
like it or not.
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| The original production, remounted |
The long
prologue to the actual performance demonstrates the viability, the real
pleasure of that unvarnished strategy. As mentioned, there's a lot of footage of the troupe simply getting ready. It’s really them, and this is really how they do
it. And it's evident that they’ve done it a thousand
times, too. But what might have been boring actually ends up as a very convincing demonstration of German film theorist Siegfried Kracauer’s old idealistic notion: the right kind of framing, the right kind of
attention, will lift the framed thing up. Kracauer called it the redemption of physical reality.
Here it seems a kind of exaltation, or maybe, since the performance is
so stylized, and the narrative will eventually bring us to infidelity and killing, some kind of
operatic apotheosis.
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| Denouement |
There’s a
wonderful bit in which choreographer/lead Gades puts on his make-up while
looking right into the camera's lens. As he does
so there’s a voice over in which he explains how it is that he went from obscurity to
mastery. This short sequence is a great example of Paul Rotha’s notion of the picture and the sound working in counterpoint. The two of them don’t quite match, the result being that they actually multiply. Also, just a minute later we see a fabulous, outright electrifying utilization of the
rehearsal space. The parade of
pirhouettes! Clapping! And more proof that there’s really nothing in
the cinema quite as thrilling as a moving camera.
This whole practically documentary equation is somewhat complicated by the fact that these are actors/dancers,
that they are obviously and always performing, that they are ridiculously
talented and attractive. This means multiplicity: we’ve got a
performance preserved, dancing in which the camera, and even the flat bed, are
successfully made a part of the choreography, and a demonstration of the
complications and satisfactions of observational and interactive
documentary. The movie is a whole bundle
of satisfying things.
Carmen
(Spain, 1983)
That first
shot! This expands the method of Blood Wedding quite considerably, though
some of the basic ideas and methods are still in place. Treat everyday things beautifully and those
everyday things emerge as beautiful in themselves. In addition to those satisfactions, Saura
gives us a really challenging and satisfying meta-narrative. Rehearsal bleeds into performance, actors
meld with the characters they’re portraying, dance and theatre and film
intermingle. It’s complicated, but it’s
clear as well. Lots of things are
effectively addressed: perceptions of Spain as they come into conflict with
Spain itself, or the way that Spaniards field and adapt those perceptions. We have the power and perversity of women,
and the possibility that the perversity is really a projection of men’s
controlling impulses. There are also tremendous echoes of portentous precedents: here is a worthy, Renoirian meditation on how stylized art or figurative
arts bring us so paradoxically and powerfully to our own realities. It’s The
Golden Coach. It’s The Red Shoes. It’s Olivier’s Henry V, and maybe even more successfully. In other words, as Michael Powell said, “all
art is one.”
Note that there are tons of spectacular little moments, if spectacular and little can properly go together. Like when the extremely charismatic guitarist Paco de Lucia discovers their own musically, culturally indigenous way into Bizet's pastiche. And again, the clapping! The aftermath of the
card game, and then the way they drop character and become friends again. Just before killing each other. Latins, artists...
Fake, but not:
El Amor Brujo
(Spain, 1986)
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| Gades, and that set |
Once again Saura
starts with an aggressively stunning shot.
Once again, the point of it is to establish not only setting but also
strategy. However convincingly dressed,
this is always a big sound stage, and another Henry V-type contemplation of how
theatricality and reality can aid each other.
Once again, theatricality and reality (including heritage and tradition)
do just that; they’ve got this concept down.
The wedding sequence is tremendous, especially the contemporary
parts—the plugged in musical ensemble—which only show that the modern is always
and only secondary to antiquity.
This one feels
really operatic, more even than the previous two. Is it because of all of the Spaniards and gypsies? These things, and it's also operatic because it’s so outsized, and
so convicted in its extravagance. This production—all of these productions—invites, requires our own investment, and a real suspension of
disbelief. All this smouldering! It’s fantastic, and almost always on the
brink of being silly. In the previous
two films the way everyone just starts dancing or clapping or ululating is
pretty amazing. It feels so spontaneous,
and it’s so wonderfully done. Here you might say that it occasionally feels like a bit of a mannerism, or even a bit of not very
good.
All of that is
more noticeable because this film’s source is pretty thin, dramatically. Or maybe it’s just pretty small—de Falla's suite only lasts twenty-three minutes, after all. Mind you, it really is stirring when those familiar musical airs arrive. Also, the cross-casting between the three films
starts to yield real benefits.
Gades (who is getting interestingly older), Cristina Hoyos—look at the camera compositions; in a way the whole story/myth comes back to the fact and figure of her breasts—the surpassingly sluttish Laura del Sol,
and, in a stunningly dissolute turn (just as in Carmen), Juan Antonio Jimenez start
to register both as old friends and out and out archetypes.
