February 2nd, 2006
A series of films by Carlos Saura is being shown this month at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago.
FLAMENCO
1995, Carlos Saura, Spain, 100 min.
With Joaquín Cortés, Paco de Lucía
This soulful and sexy performance film combines dazzling dance pyrotechnics with the cinematic virtuosity of master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (LAST TANGO IN PARIS, APOCALYPSE NOW). A brief introduction traces the history of flamenco; the film then launches into an unbroken series of electrifying dance numbers, performed by over 300 of Spain’s leading flamenco artists, placed in striking visual settings that range from black-on-white austerity to brilliant color to dramatic chiaroscuro. In Spanish with English subtitles.
GOYA IN BORDEAUX (GOYA EN BURDEOS)
1999, Carlos Saura, Spain, 102 min.
With Francisco Rabal, José Coronado, Maribel Verdú
Saura’s innovative film captures the great Spanish artist in his 82nd (and final) year, living in exile in Southern France. The great Francisco Rabal plays Goya as an aging bull, infirm but hardly enfeebled, attacking the canvas as his memories summon up his stormy life. Extending the experiments of FLAMENCO and TANGO, Saura and Storaro create a spectacularly fluid visual field-paintings becoming live-action tableaux, walls turning transparent, light and color constantly transforming. In Spanish with English subtitles.
BERIA
2005, Carlos Saura, Spain, 99 min.
With Sara Baras, Antonio Canales, Aida Gómez
We welcome renowned director Carlos Saura for the first Chicago screening of his latest film. Returning to the non-narrative format of FLAMENCO, IBERIA is an unbroken series of brilliantly performed, spectacularly visualized musical numbers, built around the music of composer Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909). The film features an awesome array of dancing, singing, and instrumental talent, and pays special tribute to the gypsy culture of southern Spain. In Spanish with English subtitles.
TANGO (TANGO, NO ME DEJES NUNCA)
1998, Carlos Saura, Spain, 115 min.
With Miguel Ángel Solá, Mia Maestro
In his second collaboration with cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, Saura produced another exhilarating celebration of dance, this time enclosing the stunning dance numbers within a backstage plot line. Following an unhappy love affair, a director goes to Buenos Aires to direct an all-dancing movie called TANGO, but he runs afoul of nervous investors and a jealous gangster. In Spanish with English subtitles.
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