Xavier Herrero |
Madrid (EFE).- Carlos Saura was a director dedicated “to dignifying flamenco and our dance” and exporting them “halfway around the world”, as INAEM pointed out this Friday after his death and is shown by a filmography with major references such as “Sevillanas”, “Carmen” or “Blood Wedding”.
On that Lorca title he composed his first approach to these worlds as a filmmaker. It was in 1981 and for this he managed to recruit two fundamental figures such as the dancers Cristina Hoyos and Antonio Gades.
Just two years later, he called them back to record behind the camera how a flamenco ballet prepares a version of the drama “Carmen” written by Prosper Merimee, later turned into an opera by George Bizet. With Laura del Sol in the main role, she also managed to count on Pepa Flores and the virtuosity of Paco de Lucía on the guitar.
The main trio would still return to work under Saura’s orders to shoot “El amor brujo” in 1986, with which he closed this trilogy dedicated to flamenco based on the immortal music of Manuel de Falla.
It would not be, however, his last approach to this genre, since in 1995 he filmed “Flamenco”, a review of the different songs and dances that color this Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity 15 years before it reached that declaration by UNESCO. La Paquera de Jerez, Manolo Sanlúcar and Joaquín Cortés were some of the many talents that collaborated.
Likewise, based on Isaac Albéniz’s suite «Iberia», in 2005 he premiered a film of the same name in which more flamenco talents participated, such as the bailaores Sara Baras, Antonio Canales and Aída Gómez or the cantaores Enrique and Estrella Morente.
After a life dedicated to extolling this genre, Saura once again found the support of many of his old collaborators (Paco de Lucía, Sara Varas) and some new ones (José Mercé, Niña Pastori, Miguel Poveda or Farruquito) to shoot «Flamenco, Flamenco » (2010).
In his production there were still many more styles with a Spanish accent or, at least, twinned. It was the case of “Sevillanas” (1992), which included a scene of Lola Flores herself dancing, which this Friday, after her death, has been one of the most remembered of her work.
Later, “Jota de Saura” (2016) would arrive, his pending debt in the form of a documentary approach to the musical legacy of his native Aragon.
There are also “Fados” (2007), which picked up the vibration of the neighboring country through artists like Carlo do Carmo and Mariza, or before, “Tango” (1998), fiction co-produced between Spain and Argentina in which the genre that gives it its name played an important role and was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film.
And although they did not come from strictly musical films, one cannot forget the influence that many of their scenes had on the public’s memory thanks to the combination of image and melody, such as Rafaela Aparicio’s going down the stairs in a chair in “Mamá turns 100” (1979).
Perhaps the most emblematic of all is the one in which the actress Ana Torrent, then still a child, danced in “Cría cuervos” (1976) the now mythical “Because you go” that, written by José Luis Perales, sang Jeanette. It was a personal undertaking by Saura himself after hearing the theme that he turned into the center of the soundtrack and which, after the film’s victory at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, became a great success in Europe.