SPECIAL FEATURE. CARLOS SAURA, SHOOTING OF ‘FLAMENCO,
FLAMENCO’
The jondo sequel
S.C./ Flamenco-world.com, November 10th, 2009
Fifteen years ago, Carlos
Saura marked a turning point in the movie history of
flamenco. It wasn’t the genre’s first musical
film; first came ‘Duende y misterio del flamenco’
by Edgar Neville, but times were different, with different
filmmakers, different media and different channels for the
spreading of a film in a hyper-communicated, globalized
world addicted to images. ‘Flamenco’ premiered
in 1994, a year in which flamenco increased its number of
followers exponentially all over the world... although there
are no meters to demonstrate it. That film, which already
had the way paved for it thanks to the Saura-Gades trilogy,
included the best of the best flamenco at the time. To mention
a few, from great maestros such as La Paquera, Fernanda
and Chocolate, to superstars like Joaquín Cortés,
without leaving behind foundations such as Paco de Lucía,
Enrique Morente and Manuela Carrasco, or young renovators
like Belén Maya and Ketama. They were all depicted
there for posterity on stages so neutral that their drama,
their esthetics, their sweetness, their daring, their roots,
their light, their energy... stayed really up close in the
foreground. But it is known by all that flamenco moves on…
and it moves on really quickly. So fourteen years is enough
time to show other focuses, other faces, other bodies and
other voices.
Eva Yerbabuena in the shooting
of 'Flamenco Flamenco' (Photo: Flamenco Flamenco /
GPD) |
José Mercé
in the shooting of 'Flamenco Flamenco' (Photo: Flamenco
Flamenco / GPD) |
At least, that’s what Carlos Saura
and his musical consultant Isidro Muñoz think: “Both
of us agree that there is a really mighty new flamenco;
a flamenco of young talents who are seeking their way in
our country and beyond our borders”, the director
writes. That is the essence of the sequel ‘Flamenco
Flamenco’, produced by GPD and Tresmonstruos. And
it materializes in the figures of Sara
Baras por alegrías, Eva Yerbabuena por soleá
and lullaby, Javier Latorre as choreographer of the dance
corps, Rocío Molina with a garrotín, Israel
Galván, Arcángel, Miguel Poveda, Niña
Pastori, Farruquito, Rafael Estévez, Nani Paños,
pianists Dorantes and Diego Amador, Diego del Morao, Montse
Cortés, José Valencia, Jesús Méndez…
But the newcomers and the really recent newcomers are not
alone. In the words of the Aragonese filmmaker, “the
reality of this artform cannot be reflected in its just
form without some of the great living maestros whom we are
lucky enough to have around”. And forming part of
this “core” is José Mercé por
martinete and toná; Paco de Lucía por soleá;
Tomatito recalling Camarón’s ‘La leyenda
del tiempo’, but with Niña Pastori’s
voice; Moraíto accompanying Jerez por bulerías;
and Manolo Sanlúcar with ‘La danza de los pavos’,
which is part of his penultimate album inspired by painter
Baldomero Romero Ressendi.
Manolo Sanlúcar
in the shooting of 'Flamenco Flamenco' (Photo: Flamenco
Flamenco / GPD) |
Carlos Saura and Vittorio
Storaro in the shooting of 'Flamenco Flamenco' (Photo:
Flamenco Flamenco / GPD) |
The lighting in the background will be
none other than that of Vittorio Storaro, who Saura once
again forms a tandem with after ‘Flamenco’,
after ‘Tango’, after ‘Goya en Burdeos’
and after the very recent ‘Io, Don Giovanni’.
But the lighting doesn’t come just from him, but rather
is combined with the one captured by different painters
in days gone by, trying to capture flamenco’s own
light on their canvases. Gigantic reproductions of Julio
Romero de Torres, Zuloaga and Goya have been coexisting
with artists and cameras in what was the Pavilion of the
Future at Seville’s 1992 Universal Exposition, an
impressive building located on the banks of the Guadalquivir,
on the side of Isla de la Cartuja, the work of architects
Martorell, Bohigas, Mackay and Peter Rice. And this set
is now symbolic, like the old Estación de Córdoba
was back then, located on the river’s other shore
and in the 19th century, the one which shaped flamenco as
a musical genre. The thing is that at the set of the future,
the future of the jondo has been happening for six weeks.
The shooting is still going on at this point in time, begun
on October 5th and scheduled to finalize on November 13th.
Before the movie cameras (and also those of the press) today
will be Sara Baras who, according to the script, will dance
por alegrías. The Cádiz-born artist isn’t
among the newcomers, but she wasn’t there in ‘Flamenco’
when she was one. And today - even though she removed the
thorn from her side in ‘Iberia’
- she appears in this film as a full-fledged star, perhaps
the most popular bailaora at present as a result of shows
such as ‘Sabores’, ‘Sueños’,
‘Mariana Pineda’ and ‘Carmen’, which
fill theaters here and there for days upon days.
A few days ago, the artist appeared at
the set who will represent the avant-garde and even experimental
side in the sequel: Israel
Galván. And wow, what this work meant to him
in which he offers the very latest from his laboratory:
‘Silencio’. As he related in an interview for
the daily newspaper ‘Público’, it was
heavy for him: “When I worked with Vittorio Storaro
I was amazed that he was the one who put stickers on my
shoes to mark the light”. And the thing is that this
mythomaniac had before him none other than one of the members
of the artistic crew of one of his favorite films, ‘Apocalypse
Now’, which his breathtaking show ‘El final
de este estado de cosas’ is strongly connected to.
Life can take many unexpected turns. So many that who would
have told Rafael Estévez when he wore out the VHS
of ‘Flamenco’ from playing it so many times
that one day he would be part of the lineup of its sequel.
| |
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| Set
of 'Flamenco Flamenco' by Carlos Saura
in the Pavilion of the Future in Seville
(Photos: Flamenco Flamenco / GPD) |
“When we were really young, we used
to flip out watching the generation of artists depicted
by that film which marked us all”, the bailaor emphasizes.
And today he’s on the screen together with Nani Paños,
who he directs the company Dospormedio with and who he created
all the choreography with for the show ‘Flamenco
Hoy de Carlos Saura’, premiered scarcely two months
ago and which will soon begin to tour. So in their case
the plus comes into play of complicity with the director
which was forged day in and day out at rehearsals in a room
at the Teatros del Canal. But the relationship is different
now. “When we worked with him as his choreographers,
you tried to share; now we’re excited to be under
his orders and the objectives of a movie… by Carlos
Saura!”, Estévez points out. And for the occasion,
they have designed a pas de trois for the guajira ‘Mi
mulata’, sung by none other than Arcángel.
They dance it with young Granada-born bailaora Patricia
Guerrero, “a young talent” who, by the way,
is not from the seventies or the eighties, but the nineties.
But against all odds, she isn’t the
youngest one in the lineup. As in ‘Flamenco’,
there is also a child prodigy here. And in passing, the
gap is bridged between both films. Then it was Farruquito
- also present here with the piece ‘Lluvia de ilusión’
- who took over from his grandfather Farruco. And now it
is his little brother, very little, Manuel Fernández
Montoya ‘El Carpeta’, who sentences the family’s
continuity por seguiriyas. Although there is another even
clearer link between the first movie and the second; ‘Verde
que te quiero verde’. The former was closed by this
Lorca-style song, by the hands of flamenco crossover maestros
of the times as Manzanita and Ketama were. And the latter
is opened with this same song, but with the voice of Tomatito’s
daughter, Ángeles Fernández. Another generation.
Another flamenco. And that always taking a little step further
is what fascinates Carlos Saura, very restless at seventy-something.
As he told us a few years ago in an interview,
he believes that “flamenco is something which has
surprised us all, to the extent that it is a way opening
up towards the future. It has that possibility of being
able to be very orthodox and also very heterodox... and
even more heterodox”. The filmmaker always wanted
to take part in that constant, varied evolution: “I
fight hard to be able to open up risky ways”, he told
us back then. And his fight continues… in ‘Flamenco
Flamenco’.
| |
|
| Set
of 'Flamenco Flamenco' by Carlos Saura in the Pavilion
of the Future in Seville (Photos:
Flamenco Flamenco / GPD) |
'Flamenco
Flamenco' by Carlos Saura. Storyboard (Photo: Flamenco
Flamenco / GPD) |
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