During the "Triana" musical number, the sound of the piano is a little bit ahead from the pianist interpretation that we're seeing.
I have seen a lot of Saura films and always found amazing the way he assembles music, dance, drama and great cinema in his movies. Ibéria shows an even better Saura, dealing with multimedia concepts and a more contemporary concept of dance and music.
Iberia is nice to see on TV. But why see this in silver screen?
I have never danced flamenco before, but somehow I feel like this movie was perfect. The colors, how blatant the dances were, the gypsies, and the rivals all put together made a movie that seemed to have ended too soon.
If Saura hadn't done anything like this before, Iberia would be a milestone. Now it still deserves inclusion to honor a great director and a great cinematic conservator of Spanish culture, but he has done a lot like this before, and though we can applaud the riches he has given us, we have to pick and choose favorites and high points among similar films which include Blood Wedding (1981), Carmen (1983), El Amore Brujo (1986), Sevillanas (1992), Salomé (2002) and Tango (1998).
Saturday June 3, 6:30pm The NeptuneMonday June 5, 4:30pm The NeptuneFew celebrations of ethnic and cultural identity succeed as mightily as Carlos Saura's brilliant interpretation of Isaac Albeniz' masterpiece Iberia Suite. At the approach of its centennial, Saura drew together an unprecedented wealth of talent from the Spanish performing arts community to create this quintessential love song to their homeland.
The music of Albeniz pervades this film. Once and a while it is played with original instrumentation (e.
Sauras's Iberia: aesthetic ecstasy, the Master strikes again Valladolid Festival, October 27, 2005One might say that there are three kinds of musicals; (1) Hollywood MGM type musicals with a flimsy plot as an excuse for stringing together a bunch of hit songs and "production number", (2) filmed Broadway shows such as "Showboat" or "Westside Story", and (3) CARLOS SAURA MUSICALS, or, Serious Dance and Music as Pure Cinema. His latest such work, "IBERIA", a suite of flamenco and balletic dances, vocalizations (Canto Hondo), and instrumental recitals (piano, small combos, guitar, saxophones), situated in astoundingly beautiful abstract sets, the whole inspired by turn-of-the century Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz's "Iberia Suite," is a motion picture which calls for a new categorization -- "Aesthetic Ecstasy" -- and is a multi-sensual experience you wish would never end so you could die watching it.
