Poucas Cinzas: Salvador Dalí

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.

It's satisfying and revealing for us to read our favorite authors, to see our favorite paintings and to watch those movies of old which have touched our hearts...and then, once we read an autobiography or watch a biopic about their creators, they make so much more sense and acquire an ever deeper brilliance to them because we can FEEL their emotions and because we know WHY they created such marvelous pieces of art. Watching Paul Morrison's remarkably powerful "Little Ashes", I feel like I'm never going to read Federico García Lorca, I'm never going to appreciate Salvador Dalí and I'm never going to see Luis Buñuel under the same light ever again. Morrison's film gives us that special kind of enlightenment, and it transports us to a different age in such a way that, once it's over, we feel trapped in between our present day and a tempestuously romantic afternoon in 1922.

"Little Ashes" takes place in 1922 Spain, when the country was under the violent regime of the Guerilla, and when the church and the government forced a conservative attitude on life, art and sex. Revolution was beginning to be whispered in the dark corners of universities and Bohemian bars, and it is here where we find Federico García Lorca (Javier Beltrán), an eager student who writes beautiful poems but who seeks betterment. We also find his best friend Luis Buñuel (Matthew McNulty), a revolutionary cinephile who gains the inspiration for his short films from the disturbing situation in Spain. These are nice young men who live the life of students and artists, happily bashing at the government but always remaining within their boundaries. But along comes Salvador Dalí (Robert Pattinson), a quirky young painter who dreams of becoming the greatest painter of Spain and who constantly challenges social boundaries and incites freedom of expression. García Lorca and Buñuel become instant friends with Dalí, but from the first moment they meet, García Lorca and Dalí are joined together by an unbearable attraction...which they must keep hidden, especially from their mutual friend Buñuel who hates homosexuals and from the rest of their society who could threaten their lives.

The film constantly mixes and entwines different subjects: the tense, suffocating love between García Lorca and Dalí, their complicated relationship with Buñuel, the political situation of the country and their artistic flashes of genius. We get to a point where we don't know whether the action and dialogue on screen pertains to a political or romantic subject. These three men are geniuses, and they all have a complicated personality that constantly clashes with each other's art and political views. This is remarkable- the mélange of subjects and points of view. It makes the viewer a spectator of the historical drama that surrounded the characters, and it floods us with information and emotions which don't make us biased towards a specific character. It's not that kind of film where you either love or hate the heroes and villains; everyone is both a sweetheart and a monster, everything has a good side and a bad one to it. It's up to us, the viewers, to take sides and analyze whom and what we sympathize with.

The film is poetic, in every sense of the word. García Lorca reads his poems in various scenes, other scenes feature sweeping takes of a mesmerizing landscape with sublime music, other scenes feature deep and intelligent dialogue that could never be understood without a profound look into the characters' souls. That's another thing I loved about the film- the fact that it feeds you raw art, raw emotion and it's up to you to make sense of it all. This is a film to be analyzed, pondered and savored in your entrails. Anything less than that, and you're bound to lose track of some things. The characters never say or express what they feel, but resort to beautiful (yet complicated) poems, surrealist paintings or obscure films to hint at the reason behind their actions. We, the audience, take it all in, bask in their art, and weigh everything.

The film is executed with a quiet finesse, with sublime tenderness. It gives you facts little by little, it gives you time to explore each character, it gives you pieces of their artistic work, and you begin to finally understand what everything means. The actors deliver fine performances (with the special mention of Robert Pattinson who managed to capture Dalí almost perfectly, and who's inspired in his portrayal), the directing flows like undisturbed water, the writing is perfect and the overall production has little to be disliked.

But there is a slight flaw: there are moments of extreme tension, when the mood and the topic of the film have reached such nerve-wrecking heights and the film, in its attempt to keep up with the pace, cuts off the tension. Notice the scene where García Lorca, Dalí and Magdalena, a friend of theirs, are alone in their dorm room and the two men have had a bitter discussion; this is one of the most disturbing scenes in the film, and there isn't a follow up to the emotions exposed therein. Or notice a poignant scene, where Dalí and García Lorca are swimming; it's perfectly executed, but the next scene abruptly cuts the overall feeling the one before had created. Nevertheless, like I said before, it's a SLIGHT flaw, and the rest of the film rewards us and redeems our viewing experience.

This movie is based on actual characters, actual facts, and is inspired by written documents attesting to the majority of events, but great artistic liberty has also been used to add drama and romance. It had all the elements to make it a potential timeless masterpiece, but it remains at the level of a 'pretty good film.' Interesting to watch, enlightening, satisfying...but not as moving as I thought it would be.

Rating: 3 stars out of 4!

The title of my review (if IMDb permits) is taken from a quote by Salvador Dali in 1969 regarding rumors of a Dali-Lorca affair. The full quote, epitomizing Dali's unbridled humor and arrogance is as follows:

"He was homosexual, as everyone knows, and madly in love with me. He tried to screw me twice... I was extremely annoyed, because I wasn't homosexual, and I wasn't interested in giving in. Besides, it hurts. So nothing came of it. But I felt awfully flattered vis-à-vis the prestige. Deep down I felt that he was a great poet and that I owe him a tiny bit of the Divine Dali's a(..)hole."

And with that, let's now talk about the movie.

Although vividly denied by Dali, speculation of a romance between Dali & Lorca is the story of "Little Ashes". This is important to note up front, because if you're looking for a film that delves into the passion & inspiration behind Dali's art, Lorca's poetry and Buñuel's films, you'll be disappointed. This is mostly a straightforward love story with only a few substantial references to the 3 young men's creations (Lorca recites 2 poems, Dali displays 1 painting, and we get no more than 5 sec of Buñuel's film references, including the infamous slashed eyeball scene from "Un Chien Andalou").

What makes this film separate from any other generic forbidden love story is the interesting portrayal of the characters. Whether historically accurate or not, their personalities jump out of the screen at you, particularly Dali played by Rob Pattinson a.k.a. the Twilight studmuffin. Pattinson's Dali is decidedly NOT a studmuffin but instead a very awkward, dorky kid which instantly reminded me of some of Johnny Depp's early roles ("Benny & Joon", "Edward Scissorhands", "Don Juan Demarco"). But fused with his dorkiness is an overbearing arrogance which comes to the surface more frequently as the film progresses.

"Little Ashes", however, is not about Dali and certainly not about Buñuel (who is really a minor character) but is mostly from Lorca's perspective. In that respect, it's fitting that the affair (which never happened, according to Dali) would be exaggerated and poetic. If you noticed in the Dali statement I quoted, he did admit that Lorca was "madly in love" with him, and that is what the film portrays in a very poetic and sentimental way.

Although I was initially disappointed because I wanted to see more of Dali's art & creativity, I liked the forbidden, one-sided love story because it was well done and made good use of recognizable characters & events in history. Thus you could say I liked it in the end (uh, which is more than we can say for Dali. Heh heh).

Don't always believe what the critics say. I have no explanation as to why some critics gave Little Ashes bad reviews other than it just wasn't your typical movie and they couldn't understand that.

This movie tells a beautiful and fascinating story (read the synopsis beforehand it helps).

The acting is excellent.

The accents sound/are authentic (when Dali sounds American or French that is done intentionally from what i hear.) oh, and it's an INDEPENDENT FILM! aka it's not necessarily going to be like every other dramatic film out there.

Go into it with an OPEN MIND. If you enjoy the previews you will probably enjoy the movie.

Go see it and form your own opinion. This movie is great but it isn't for everyone.

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.