EL CARPETA IN FLAMENCO FLAMENCO, BORN INTO A DYNASTY

Saura returns to his austere theatrical form with another dazzling flamenco movie

Since his 1995 Flamenco is my personal favorite of Carlos Saura's series of musical performance films, it's hard to object to the second coming, Flamenco Flamenco, which, 15 years later, introduces members of a new generation delivering the tradition in their own ways along with some veteran performers. Again Saura presents a brilliant, beautiful, yet austere sequence of short performances in different groupings -- a few, many, just a song, just a dancer, song and dance, a kid dancer, a 70-year-old guitarist -- in a big improvised sound stage (the Seville Expo ’92 pavilion) with no dialogue or translation of song lyrics, only intertitles.

If you want a lesson on Spanish musical culture, it's here buried, and you may feel it in your soul, but nothing is explained. This isn't a music lesson, just a brilliant teaser. This time the background is made up of giant reproductions of paintings, many from the nineteenth century, and some posters, also acting as scrims, which make for even richer color than before. We just bask in the glow of Vittorio Storaro's cinematography (he and Saura being reunited here for the first time since 1995) and accept one act or aggregation after another. All are impressive. Some delight more than others. A few seem pushed. I can't say this is better than Saura's Flamenco 1, just a bit different.

New artists breathe new life into the genre and there is always experimentation within it. But the best numbers are often the most traditional. And many are. The opener, a Rumba of "Verde te quiero verde," which was performed even mere energetically in the 1995 film, rates high. Here it's done by Carlos García and María Ángeles Fernández. Next, in "Alegria" Sara Baras does a series of the noble, preening, show-off moves, stamping with her high-heeled tap shoes, in a dance that is the essence of all that's Spanish.

I was not very impressed by the experiments like the two jazzy pianists playing off each other, the five female dancers dancing with veils over their whole bodies like Egyptian peasants, or "Siléncio" by the unquestionably brilliant Israel Galván, dancing alone without music, which seems to strain. Better is "El Carpeta," with the boy dancer (there was one in 1995 too, and he is here, grown up) and 17 people singing and making music to back him up, and applauding him when he's done. Kid dancers are good. They tend to be traditional in both dance style and tight dark suit and nimbler and quicker than a big person can be. What better illustration that flamenco lives than a 12-year-old doing it just right? It's in the genes. El Carpeta is the son of La Farruca, a dancer acclaimed for her elegance, and grandson of the famous El Farruco: "los Farruco" are a gypsy dynasty. El Carpeta isn't on the way, he's already great. This is what we mean by tradition. "Copla por Bulería" " by Miguel Poveda is also fine in the austere traditional way: three men at a table, one singing, surrounded by posters, the other two beating a rhythm and encouraging the singer, creating that chemistry and mutual encouragement so essential to flamenco performance.

The older artists win our admiration, like Maria Bala (who has since passed away), singing a "Saeta" (a religious lament) traditionally, a capella, with the true raucous flamenco voice. Flamenco should not be pretty. It is austere, bitter, and proud. Yet at 45 minutes it seemed the pleasure of the opening had not been sustained, till there came a Guajira (a peasant dance, originally Cuban) by Arcángel with one female and two male dancers and choreography by Rafael Estévez and Nani Paños, with melodic music and good-looking people. The next number, an Alegría featuring Manolo Sanlúcar, satisfies with three women singing in unison, always a good flamenco effect, and the guitarist, the great, 70-year-old instrumentalist and composer Sanlúcar, playing his own composition. They are doing "Puerto del Principe" from Sanlúcar's classic 1988 album Tauromagia -- which was performed in Saura's 1995 film too. Sanlúcar makes it seem so simple because he is so assured. His playing brought tears to my eyes.

Saura, who is now 82, actually began his career with a short film in 1955 called Flamenco. In the Eighties he achieved note with his "Flamenco Trilogy," Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding), Carmen, and El amor brujo featuring the work of Spanish flamenco dancer Cristina Hoyos. He later made the movies Flamenco (1995), Tango (1998), and Ibeia (2005) and Fados (2007). Saura (see Film Comment) has made many other films of a bold sort and linked with neorealism and the French Nouvelle Vague, such as The Delinquents and The Hunt, an international success. But these days he seems mostly identified as an archivist and celebrator of Spanish musical culture, particularly the song and dance of Andalusia, though he himself comes from Aragon.

In his 2007 Film Comment survey of Saura's whole body of work Manuel Yáñez-Murillo says that "since the mid-Eighties his films have shown signs of increasing fatigue." Even without Yáñez-Murillo's encyclopedic knowledge of Saura one, can tell just by comparing The Hunt with the colorful musical films, that in his later years that the director has gone for something more accessible and less challenging. The art of cinemas's loss has been the Anglo art house's gain, since the musical films, enhanced by his collaboration with Vittorio Storaro (renewed here for the first time since 1995), have made for delightful viewing, without there having been any compromise of taste, craft, or beauty on Saura's part.

By Sanlúcar the film is on a roll, and when the women of the veils return without the veils, despite the artificiality of "choreography" (flamenco seems best when it's spontaneous), they are charming and liquid in their moves this time. Though having a dancer and singer perform in an artificial rain storm for "Canción de cuna" again seems pushed, singer Miguel Poveda and dancer Eva la Yerbabuena are good enough to make it work. Then comes a Zapateado by another Farruco, Farruquito, one of El Carpeta's two dancing older brothers. The smiling, handsome dancer is surrounded by 4 male singers, 4 guitars, 3 females, a violin: it almost seems too much. But it's great. Farruquito, who has had a checkered past, was the 12-year-old kid dancer in Saura's 1995 Flamenco. Michael Jackson could have learned a thing or two from the dazzling Farruquito, and maybe vice versa. He is often billed as one of the greatest flamenco dancers of all time. His dancing has a kind of sprezzatura, a careless grace: "I know I'm great. What do I care! It comes naturally!" Will his little brother El Carpeta equal him one day?

Toward the end, the famous guitarist Paco de Lucia, known here for his crossover albums and concerts with John McLaughlin and Al de Meola, comes and sits surrounded by men and women, including a very strong woman singer. The final group fades away as the camera withdraws past ranks of big paintings enfilade, leaving that impression earlier films did that the music goes on playing forever. May it do so! Despite some criticism, this is wonderful, gorgeous entertainment. Not much can match it, and even if it's from 2010, it's still one of the best films of the year.

Flamenco Flamenco, 97 mins., debuted at Japan's Latin Beat Festival September 2010. Its US theatrical opening (NYC) is Friday, 21 November 2014. It will be rolling out at Landmark theaters, now in Boston, coming to San Francisco 26 December. Reviews have been glowing (Metacritic 82).

I previously reviewed Saura's Iberia (2005) and Fados (2007).

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.