Dali, Lorca, Bunuel - Les jeunes années

Erotic tension builds between poet Federico Garcia Lorca and artist Salvador Dali from the first few minutes of Little Ashes. Dalí arrives in a foppish outfit amidst the genteel university suits worn by the 1920s college students. He is immediately marked as different, but different enough to be intriguing to the intellectual elite of the university. Dalí arrives in shyness but eventually grows into his overt eccentricities throughout the film, and you see the evolution of his iconic mustache.

1920s Spain is also building in its fascist overtones, assigning ten years of hard labor to anyone found "maricone," or homosexual. Between eroticism and brutality, Lorca and Dalí have a sometimes tender, sometimes masochistic affair. But this film is mostly seen through the romantic gaze of Lorca, and the romanticism outweighs the acts of brutality the occurs on the sidelines with the massacre of a village by Lorca's town called into view by his frequent poetry recitals. Dalí is another story, often preferring to build and then destroy his art and his relationships out of a sense of the grandiose or a desire to go further so he could be remembered.

The film is more Lorca than Dalí, and thus all the university students are beautiful men who are sometimes hard to distinguish from each other. Lorca was a homosexual while Dalí was ambivalent. The film is also Lorca in the poetry of its images, often nostalgic and lingering compositions of light and shadow and throbbing movement. The actor who plays Lorca has a sweet and vulnerable innocence, he is the perfect lover. However the poetic musings he and others have often seem inspired but out of place, disconnected from the world that we and the characters live in. The film might have done a better job of connecting Lorca to his time and his place and the backdrop of upheaval just under the surface. As is much of what Lorca represents seems to be an air.

Robert Pattinson as Dalí is an odd choice. He is rather too beautiful for his part. But Pattinson does give a multi-dimensional performance as Dalí, often looking to be on the verge of nervous breakdown or a fit of mania. Pattinson does well as a young perhaps gay lover but is less convincing as an older and successful Dalí. However overall Pattinson does not disappoint, even though his portrayal of Dalí brooks something of disenchantment with the artist later in the film. Then Dalí as the character seems both attention-seeking and uncharismatic, and Lorca does indeed seem too good for him.

7/10 for being a complex film with good acting and a lovely kind of tenderness from the actor who plays Lorca. The images and the words and the actors are all beautiful, however there is a sense of too much beauty and too little to connect one idea to the next to leave a full and lasting impression. And also the romance between the two leads are rather wished for than known, it seems like. However do watch this film for its gorgeous imagery and for a unique performance by Pattinson, as well as an introduction to the type of mood apparent in 1920s Spain regarding issues like homosexuality.

I will admit, what drew me to this movie was the fact that Robert Pattinson was in it and after seeing Twilight and the ga-ga-ness of him and the media, young girls and even old ladies, I wanted to see him act. (It came across to me in Twilight that he was more eye candy than anything else and his 'acting' was poor.) In Little Ashes he begins shy, reserved and awkward and he ends over the top, flamboyant and awkward. I really feel no middle ground with him, it is one extreme or the other. (I guess one could argue that was Dali himself as well.) He is enjoyable to watch on screen and I do believe that there is potential there. I would have chosen differently for Dali, Pattinson is too young maybe? and British- it would have been nice to see the film in the original language of Dali, even if I had to read it.

Javier Beltran was an excellent choice to play famous writer Federico Garcia Lorca. He was passionate, commanding on screen and as a audience member you grow to love him. You feel his confusion, frustration and love for art, his country and his family. Out of all the players in this film he delivers lines with such a fervor that it as though he is speaking to you- in our time.

At times the dialog falls flat and the story moves slow, it is overall a well told story about art, love and betrayal, just as the tag line reads. The music forces the movie along at some points and the flashes of black and white imagery try to convey the chaos that was surrounding Dali and his mates in Spain in the 1920's and it does not do justice to the uncertainty and fear that was rampant.

If movies are in themselves pieces of art this is a valiant effort on the part of everyone involved, including Mr. Pattinson- though I hope this is not the best I see from him, but it did make me enjoy him as an actor, not eye candy. He to a chance and pushed the limits on himself, certain scenes he is impressive and you cannot look away- even when the image is disturbing- and taking on such an iconic figure in history takes courage.

I think that Dali and Pattinson may have one thing in common for their art- no limits.

A beautiful movie about art, love and life choices. It is based on the stories and relationships between Federico García Lorca, Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel since their friendship in the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid in the 1920s. The movie focuses on the complexity of their relationships amidst a turbulent political context in Europe and particularly in Spain, a changing cultural and intellectual life dominated by the avant-garde, surrealism, the influences of jazz and the decadent lifestyle of artists in Europe. It portrays the various choices each makes without being judgmental: the romantic revolutionary choices of Lorca that lead to his execution at the hands of the Nationalist militia at the very beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the narcissistic path of Salvador Dalí marked by genius, excessiveness and conceit, and the emotionally and politically embroiled life of Luis Buñuel who decides early on that his artistic career cannot find a place in Spain.

The editing of the movie could have used a little more smoothness. Some of the scenes and frames seemed superfluous. Some of the lines in the dialogue, wanting to be informative, ended up sounding a bit out of context and unrealistic. The actors' performances were very good, except for a few instances where their performance seemed inadequate mainly because of what I take to be the main problem in the movie, namely that of language.

Two of the main actors are Spanish, speaking English - the main language of the movie - with a very heavy Spanish accent and the other two are British actors speaking English with a fake heavy Spanish accent (which made a few words incomprehensible)!!! This was a major turnoff for me. In movies like these, it's either/or. Either you get a cast that speak English with a homogeneous native accent, or you get a Spanish-speaking cast, and a good Spanish script co-writer and exert some extra effort to make the movie entirely in Spanish. I found the parts where Lorca recites some of his poems in Spanish, with the same actor in v/o reading them in English particularly disagreeable and made me incapable of properly enjoying the poetry... I'd say that the language problem reduced my enjoyment of the this otherwise very beautiful and well-done movie by 50%. I highly recommend watching it though.

I just saw "Little Ashes" at the LGBT Festival here in Miami and I have got to say that it was good. I do have to warn you that it is abstract at some points but it IS a Dali movie and he led a very strange life. The movie does justice to the man. I went thinking it was going to be completely about Dali but it mainly focuses on the relationship he had with Frederico. Unfortunately I am very quite aware that this movie will not get the attention it deserves in the states and that a good portion of the people who will watch this movie will only watch for the main actor, Mister Robert Pattinson but I still suggest that Dali lovers watch this movie as well as fans of slightly strange movies.

There aren't much words to describe. Whether you like this movie or not definitely depends on the type of person you are. its definitely a real independent European film. but i love it. i think the actors capture everything well and the casting was exceptional. i loved the relationship between Dali and Lorca. I watched it a few days ago and i am still thinking and obsessing about the film and its aspects. I think if your the more sentimental type you'll enjoy it, but then again you may not. Like i said, you will either love it or not. its not one of those 'society-accepted' common films i.e. 'transformers'. its artsie and dramatic and Dali is just eccentric. love it. love love love it. 9/10.