As I get older, I increasingly find myself taking pleasure in the talents of others. Whether it be something I’ve long been interested in or something I’ve never cared about, if someone is passionate about something then, yeah, I’ll make time to check it out. I found myself thinking a great deal about the skill of other people as I watched Carlos Saura’s Blood Wedding over the past week. I like to consider myself a curious and searching movie watcher, willing to give almost anything a chance. I can’t help but think back to the younger me and if I told myself that one day I’d watch and greatly enjoy a movie that is a filmed rehearsal of a play. I laugh now at the thought of where my headspace would’ve been back then and where it is now.
Blood Wedding is the first part of Saura’s Flamenco Trilogy, recently released on Blu-ray via the Criterion Collection’s Eclipse Series. It’s 70 minutes of exuberant filmmaking, led by dancer and choreographer Antonio Gades as his dance company runs through Federico Garcia Lopez’s play Blood Wedding. Despite all of the action taking place in a rehearsal studio, Saura films it like it’s being performed onstage in front of an audience. The camera movement and editing are excellent, constantly finding new aspects of the performers and their talent to highlight. My mind goes back to the sweeping shots of feet as they glide across the floor, the dancers carefully applying makeup in the dressing room at the film’s beginning. Saura captures the minutia that goes into a performance without showing us the final result and, frankly, it’s hard to envision the stage version being more compelling than what we get in Blood Wedding.
Watching Gades and the rest of the dancers feels like watching a sport, which it is. The intensity they bring to their performance, the way you can tell through the TV screen how much experience and passion they’re bringing to this moment is so pure it made me want to applaud the screen. The performance is joyous and that’s the reaction it prompted in me. Saura asks viewers to consider the performers rather than the performance itself. If we were seeing Blood Wedding on stage, in front of an audience, we’d be caught following the story in addition to everything else going on and it’s easy to overlook all the individual components. By filming a rehearsal, and one that is largely wordless, Saura frees the audience from that part of the experience and allows the talents of the performers to come to the fore in a way that feels immediate. Better than any front row seat, we’re brought up close and personal as the dancers work through their performance and feels it like letting the audience is part of the process. With our entertainment and art we’re so conditioned to see the final product and render judgement. Saura reminds us that the process can be just as important, moving, and gratifying as the result.
Blood Wedding is an exhilarating experience and I’m excited to move onto the next chapter in the Flamenco Trilogy, Carmen, and see where Saura goes next.
