User reviews

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

I watched "Little Ashes" last night. I have to admit I watched it mainly because Rob Pattinson is in it, so I was curious. I was prepared to not like it, having read some of the critics' negative reviews. But it was surprisingly good, very interesting and very moving. I don't know how historically accurate it is, but I felt like I learned something from watching it. All the actors were wonderful, and Rob did a great job of portraying Dali and all his eccentricities. Rob claims he never knows what he's doing when he's acting, but I think viewers, whether or not they're Pattinson fans, would be impressed with his acting ability based on this movie. If you've never seen him in anything except the Twilight movies, you'd be pleasantly surprised here. I'd recommend it to his adult fans and non-fans, as well.

I can't help but be slightly worried about anyone that professes this to be the Best Movie Ever, it was really quite bad! I've marked it 2/10 purely for Beltran's performance but the rest... well, the accents made me wince & the acting was really quite wooden and awkward for the most part. As good an actor as Pattinson is, this was a disastrous bit of casting - I thought he actually looked a bit embarrassed at times.... I do believe this would have been a lot better if the whole cast & dialogue was Spanish with some subtitles for us; the story itself is an interesting one and it would have been much more believable - and much less distracting - if that were the case.

I watched this film a week ago and after the last shot I realized that I wanted to watch it again. That very moment! From the very beginning! I read in someone's article the word "haunting" about this film - I absolutely agree with it. It's an elegantly made film with fascinating actors. The enchanting guitar, violin and piano just intensify the heady mood of it. The actors' way of speaking (described as "terrible accents" in someone's comment) didn't bother me at all, maybe because neither English nor Spanish are my first languages. But I agree with Dromerito2003 that it would've been more believable if all of them spoke Spanish (Robert Pattinson definitely has "language ear" and it wouldn't be difficult for him to speak Spanish only, I think). With subtitles. By the way now I'd like to learn Spanish to read Lorca's poems in it. And to visit Spain shown so lovingly ( I agree that photography is great!)and to see as many works of Dali as possible. And to watch "Little Ashes" again...

Oh, wow, I just shudder to think of the multiple directions they could've gone with this, how rich and manifold the ways to do such a project. A film about Dali, Garcia Lorca, and Bunuel in one swoop. And I'm saying this as not a huge fan of these people.

Rich in what we know and can imagine about a sort of popular life that we have shared into from our position as audience of one or the other, in the opportunities to annotate a multitudinous artistic life across so many different canvases, and to leverage all that as cinema about the dawn and twilight of the first truly modern era. The first time in history that we could really picture ourselves and, using ourselves, bring to life complex inner worlds.

So we have Garcia Lorca: but no fiery duende that rises from the soles of the feet and stirs the heart into song like he wrote about. Beauty when it comes by, is rather plain and ordinary and treated with the faux-lushness of a period film. The man himself is the textbook version of spurned lover and idealist.

We have Dali, him above all: but only ersatz madness and caprice, a hedonistic adonis caricature wholly attacked from the outside and using a fodder of replaceable mannerisms, with the mustache curved a little upwards as we know from pictures, and many rants about genius and breaking limits. But nothing about actually breaking them and none of the sublime intuition that melts time and is the revenge of abstract interior space upon the solid forms of history.

And Bunuel, a little beside the other two: godless, fierce, radical, tormented, but a mere stubborn footnote in the exchange of visual platitudes about love and art - as exemplified by how vibrant feels among the rest of the film the short clip from Un Chien, of course the eponymous scene.

So it's really sad that we have to settle for this, by itself a tame and harmless bout of youthful exuberance, a sort of safe exuberance that is nowhere as complex and impulsive as these people surely lived if we judge by their work, but really the most dismaying in context of these people and that work.

The film could have been issued as part of any one of these peoples' vision and shaped accordingly: a poem on evanescent beauty, an absinthe dream, a vicious social statement, ideally conflating all three as their shared adventure across tumultuous worlds. The whole could transform as words and colors were added.

So just a lot of ordinary panache is doubly insulting in this case. The pen-strokes all pontificate banalities. This is everything these people worked against all their lives, so to be so stereotypically embalmed in it?

All in all, I liked the story, the relationship is quite believable. I liked the way it evolves through time, the way their love is depicted in the movie. All the same I would recommend it just to watch while you are cooking or doing something else. I must say that the guy that plays Lorca is amazing, I'd never seen him before but i think he was great, he takes the movie for himself. As we say here,in buenos aires, "se come la pelicula" (in the good sense, mind you). On the contrary, though I like this pantinson guy, besides his looks, hes still not up to a Dali...far from him. He'd better continue playing parts as sexy vampire who walks the catwalk. Something was missing in his attempt to play the eccentric and genius Dali. Probably had they chosen another Dali, it would have been more effective. Great scenery, being Figueres in Girona,could not have been otherwise.

The sound of this movie is horrendous. I think I missed 70% of the words. My friend sitting next to me did not say anything during the movie but she heard less than I did, she told me at the end. We were in the Paris Theater in NY and it was really empty and no one was making noise. Between the accents and the non existent sound equipment the movie was too long. And I wanted to shout for the first half an hour " kiss him already".....Do not recommend this movie unless desperate.The characters are unlikeable to start and then add you have to strain to listen....too much work. Also when the translated Lorca's poems they did it with an accent. How pretentious. Should have been done in Spanish with subtitles.

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.

A truly beautiful affecting movie, but, as others have said, not as involving as it could have been. About halfway through the movie, I turned on the subtitles, because I was having a hard time following what was happening because I couldn't always understand what the actors were saying (I'm not an expert on Spain or on surrealism). Once I had the subtitles, that helped a lot, but it also made me realize what they did in the film, which was regularly throw in a French or Spanish word or phrase without any translation. I suppose a really sharp person could get the meaning from the context, but I thought it created a strange barrier between the audience and the film. I liked the movie a lot and I thought Garcia Lorca's and Dali's relationship was shown in a very honest and heartfelt way. But the movie was unnecessarily confusing, and I would recommend that anyone who watches it, unless they're multilingual, they turn on the subtitles. Though, on the other hand, having the words in the frame will spoil some of the impact of the beautiful cinematography. Maybe it's just a film you have to watch more than once, or study up on Spain in the 1920s before you view it.

There was nothing wrong with the story of the movie except the actor chosen to play the great surrealist painter: Salvador Dali. Dali played by Robert Pattinson, was so off I have to rate this movie 1/10. Being a huge fan of Dali's artwork, I am even more intrigued by Dali himself, I could stare at a photo or listen to Dali speak, almost endlessly... So to see Pattinson (and I do not blame him for taking/attempting the role) completely ripped up Dali and spat him out into a mess. Pattinson did not look, feel or sound like Dali what so ever. Dali is famous for the way he spoke, rolling words off his tongue with a Spanish accent. I understand that the movie is spoken in English for western viewers to relate to, but I can not take the movie seriously. It is like Samuel L. Jackson playing Donald Trump in a movie, it would not work, a bit of an exaggeration, I know, but you can catch my drift. Pattinson is a pale Englishman where Dali was a dark skinned Spaniard, I cannot imagine who casted him. I could go on for ever. If you are a fan of Dali or actually thought this movie was good, I recommend checking out "Dirty Dali" and "Arena - Dali," search them on youtube.

This film is definitely in that upper echelon category of films-- will either be deeply loved or greatly misunderstood. Viewers who go with an open mind; a tolerant & patient mind; understanding that this film is depicting surreal times; understanding that this type of film may be appreciated on a poetic/metaphoric level (rather than spelling everything out/beating viewers over the head with facts or niceties)-- coming from this place then I feel this film will be greatly enjoyed. (For some viewers, it might help to perhaps have a brief surrealism/Dali./Spain between the wars primer; this might make a difference in better appreciating certain aspects of the characters and the times portrayed.) I agree with another review, that in its essence this story about a little known poet and peer of Dali named Federico García Lorca-- the words devastating, beautiful, tragic, and inspiring come to mind. Lastly, even though this film depicts early 20th Century events, I must underscore the fact that this a highly important and timely film right now in 2009 in terms of basic human rights/dignity; namely the right that any human has to deeply love whomever that person wishes to love. DEFINITELY recommend this film.

This is an enjoyable but 'small' film. But with such big personalities as Buñuel, Lorca and Dali during one of the most tumultuous times in Spanish history it could have been, and should have been, so much more. Still, Lorca's pain and torment is conveyed very empathically.

Such a disappointing performance. Dalí was a complicated figure, but the way Pattinson played it, was was almost a caricature. And a bad one. Beltran's performance was better but didn't make up for Pattinson. The story, was hard to follow and the sound was awful. Never good when the music is so loud, one can't hear the dialogue.

This film was shockingly bad. I actually thought it was a comedy. The costumes were like something from a school play . The era was totally wrong as regards set and costumes. This was supposed to be 1920's?? Hello! The 'acting' and i use that term loosely, was hilariously awful. Robert Pattison looked more like Dracula in a bad wig, than the avant garde artist Salvador Dali. His voice went from American Hollywood, to Irish, to really patronising Spanish. Pronouncing your TH..., does not a Spaniard make. His intimate scenes with Baltrain were heavy and awkward. He looked in pain, as i was too.The water scene was the most wooden, overblown, sentimental tacky scene I've witnessed for a long time. The only saving grace was the actor Javier Baltrain. He , at least had some morsel of talent. The actress Marina Gatell was bouncing around the screen from her first introduction. In one scene where she visits her aunt, she flounces off to the bathroom saying 'im gonna powder my nose' , hello did the script writers have any idea how it sounds?, or was she shooting up as well. !920"s ....erm? Gatell's mock rebellious acting , and inability to hit the marks was astounding. It looked like the director fell asleep. As for the cinematography, it was lack-lustre. To read the 'reviews' from well known publications was astounding!! "Mesmerising" said Attitude, another "Robert Pattison shines" , Get real. This Stinker was a total waste of time, and my evening would have been better served reading Lorca aloud. The fact that he was portrayed like this, is a travesty.