Iberia

Sauras's Iberia: aesthetic ecstasy, the Master strikes again Valladolid Festival, October 27, 2005

One might say that there are three kinds of musicals; (1) Hollywood MGM type musicals with a flimsy plot as an excuse for stringing together a bunch of hit songs and "production number", (2) filmed Broadway shows such as "Showboat" or "Westside Story", and (3) CARLOS SAURA MUSICALS, or, Serious Dance and Music as Pure Cinema. His latest such work, "IBERIA", a suite of flamenco and balletic dances, vocalizations (Canto Hondo), and instrumental recitals (piano, small combos, guitar, saxophones), situated in astoundingly beautiful abstract sets, the whole inspired by turn-of-the century Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz's "Iberia Suite," is a motion picture which calls for a new categorization -- "Aesthetic Ecstasy" -- and is a multi-sensual experience you wish would never end so you could die watching it.

In the "Iberia suites", Albeñiz (1860-1909) painted a musical canvas of Spain, i.e., the Iberian Peninsula, region by region, producing his idea of the distinctive flavour of each in separate sections, Cordoba, Asturias, Valencia, Castilla, Sevilla, etc. culminating in the familiar international standard of the classical guitar repertoire "Sevillanas". Saura's "Iberia" is not a literal rendition of the original compositions but rather a homage to the composer adapting his music in various ways, much of it but not all, in the flamenco idiom. At the beginning of the film we are told that this is to be in a free adaptation of Albeniz's music, but, at every moment cognizant of the debt of the film to the composer and faithful to his musical ideas. Throughout the film images of the composer and scenes from his life appear in the background but are fully integrated into the ongoing visual development. What makes a Saura musical unique is the way in which he blends instrumental and vocal music, straight flamenco and modern dance, drama, lighting, sets and camera presentation into a form of "gesamt kunst" which is purely cinematic and at the same time, purely musical. If it is possible to improve on his 1983 "Carmen", which was straight flamenco from beginning to end (and is not improvable), this "Ibéria shows, if not a better, a somewhat different Saura, incorporating multimedia concepts and a more contemporary view of dance and music into his work.

In "Iberia", dancers and musicians, dances and instrumental music, are all on an equal footing, as the camera spotlights various aspects of musical interpretation, not only the technical issues involved, but also the emotional experience of playing itself. There is one section where a solo performer, a singer who is obviously in deep contact with the magical "duende" (soul) of Flamenco, wrings tears out of the screen without actually shedding any himself. Some of the dance numbers are extremely erotic, others (like the Basque sequence) are filmed folklore. There is hardly a moment which is not emotionally compelling as well as aesthetically mind-blowing, and Saura himself is credited with the design of the dazzlingly beautiful sets. This is a man who knows what he is about and what he wants from his medium, and his new "Iberia" is not only the most aesthetically exciting film of the year but is a cinematic experience that is so far up in the clouds that it looks down on the rest of the pack. Amaze-ing-ly, this film has not been submitted as the Spanish entry to the Oscars in March – but rather the bland, chanceless picture "Obaba", which is travelling well on the festival circuit but will have the chance of the proverbial snowball in Hell come springtime in Hollywood. Makes one wonder who makes the choices … by Alex Deleon, 28.10.2005 | DONOSTIA

The music of Albeniz pervades this film. Once and a while it is played with original instrumentation (e.g. piano, but never full orchestra), but often it is re-worked with various contemporary ensembles (e.g.guitar) and treatments (e.g. jazz piano). Only occasionally is the music the sole focus of the film: the vast majority of the time the music is set to various dances, often flamenco, but not always. I would guess that there are 12–14 scenes, which are not united by a plot. Not all scenes will reach the heights for an individual viewer. In my case about half reached the pinnacle, though all the rest were in their own way very fine. Those that worked for me moved me to goose-flesh aesthetic delight; indeed, the final scene left me weepy with joy. And in some very magical way it brings you deep into Spanish culture. If you don't like subtitles, don't worry. The film is virtually wordless, though each scene carries a title of an Albeniz piece. Seeing this very beautiful film sharpens my complaint that virtually none of the films of Saura are available on DVD in the USA. I am thinking here particularly of his flamenco version of "Carmen," a spectacular work of art that is available in Europe but not here (European DVD's won't play on American DVD players). This is a scandal.

Iberia is nice to see on TV. But why see this in silver screen? Lot of dance and music. If you like classical music or modern dance this could be your date movie. But otherwise one and half hour is just too long time. If you like to see skillful dancing in silver screen it's better to see Bollywood movie. They know how to combine breath taking dancing to long movie. Director Carlos Saura knows how to shoot dancing from old experience. And time to time it's look really good. but when the movie is one and hour it should be at least most of time interesting. There are many kind of art not everything is bigger then life and this film is not too big.

Saturday June 3, 6:30pm The Neptune

Monday June 5, 4:30pm The Neptune

Few celebrations of ethnic and cultural identity succeed as mightily as Carlos Saura's brilliant interpretation of Isaac Albeniz' masterpiece Iberia Suite. At the approach of its centennial, Saura drew together an unprecedented wealth of talent from the Spanish performing arts community to create this quintessential love song to their homeland. The twelve "impressions" of the suite are presented without narrative in stark surroundings, allowing the power of each performance to explode before Saura's camera. Creative use of large flats and mirrors, moved throughout the set, combined with screens, shadows, fire, rain and rear projection add glorious dramatic effects to the varied selections of song, dance and instrumental performance. Photographs of Albeniz reappear throughout the program, connecting the passion of the music to its great creator. Saura encompasses all Spaniards on his stage from the beautiful elegance of elderly flamenco dancers in traditional costume to children joyously dancing with their instructors.

If Saura hadn't done anything like this before, Iberia would be a milestone. Now it still deserves inclusion to honor a great director and a great cinematic conservator of Spanish culture, but he has done a lot like this before, and though we can applaud the riches he has given us, we have to pick and choose favorites and high points among similar films which include Blood Wedding (1981), Carmen (1983), El Amore Brujo (1986), Sevillanas (1992), Salomé (2002) and Tango (1998). I would choose Saura's 1995 Flamenco as his most unique and potent cultural document, next to which Iberia pales.

Iberia is conceived as a series of interpretations of the music of Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz (1860-1909) and in particular his "Iberia" suite for piano. Isaac Albéniz was a great contributor to the externalization of Spanish musical culture -- its re-formatting for a non-Spanish audience. He moved to France in his early thirties and was influenced by French composers. His "Iberia" suite is an imaginative synthesis of Spanish folk music with the styles of Liszt, Dukas and d'Indy. He traveled around performing his compositions, which are a kind of beautiful standardization of Spanish rhythms and melodies, not as homogenized as Ravel's Bolero but moving in that direction. Naturally, the Spanish have repossessed Albéniz, and in Iberia, the performers reinterpret his compositions in terms of various more ethnic and regional dances and styles. But the source is a tamed and diluted form of Spanish musical and dance culture compared to the echt Spanishness of pure flamenco. Flamenco, coming out of the region of Andalusia, is a deeply felt amalgam of gitane, Hispano-Arabic, and Jewish cultures. Iberia simply is the peninsula comprising Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Gibraltar; the very concept is more diluted.

Saura's Flamenco is an unstoppably intense ethnic mix of music, singing, dancing and that peacock manner of noble preening that is the essence of Spanish style, the way a man and a woman carries himself or herself with pride verging on arrogance and elegance and panache -- even bullfights and the moves of the torero are full of it -- in a series of electric sequences without introduction or conclusion; they just are. Saura always emphasized the staginess of his collaborations with choreographer Antonio Gades and other artists. In his 1995 Flamenco he dropped any pretense of a story and simply has singers, musicians, and dancers move on and off a big sound stage with nice lighting and screens, flats, and mirrors arranged by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, another of the Spanish filmmaker's important collaborators. The beginnings and endings of sequences in Flamenco are often rough, but atmospheric, marked only by the rumble and rustle of shuffling feet and a mixture of voices. Sometimes the film keeps feeding when a performance is over and you see the dancer bend over, sigh, or laugh; or somebody just unexpectedly says something. In Flamenco more than any of Saura's other musical films it's the rapt, intense interaction of singers and dancers and rhythmically clapping participant observers shouting impulsive olé's that is the "story" and creates the magic. Because Saura has truly made magic, and perhaps best so when he dropped any sort of conventional story.

Iberia is in a similar style to some of Saura's purest musical films: no narration, no dialogue, only brief titles to indicate the type of song or the region, beginning with a pianist playing Albeniz's music and gradually moving to a series of dance sequences and a little singing. In flamenco music, the fundamental element is the unaccompanied voice, and that voice is the most unmistakable and unique contribution to world music. It relates to other songs in other ethnicities, but nothing quite equals its raw raucous unique ugly-beautiful cry that defies you to do anything but listen to it with the closest attention. Then comes the clapping and the foot stomping, and then the dancing, combined with the other elements. There is only one flamenco song in Iberia. If you love Saura's Flamenco, you'll want to see Iberia, but you'll be a bit disappointed. The style is there; some of the great voices and dancing and music are there. But Iberia's source and conception doom it to a lesser degree of power and make it a less rich and intense cultural experience.