Lorca - Mord an der Freiheit

I was living in Granada when they were shooting the film on location and I was really looking forward to seeing it. It wasn't worth waiting for. The direction was dull, the actors uninspired and the plot just plain silly. Perhaps it would just have been a boring film if it was a fictional story but the makers of the film claimed that it was based on the books about Lorca written by Ian Gibson. And since it was full of historical errors it was not only a boring but also an irritating film. The only good thing about it is the view of the Alhambra. An interesting note is that the fascist bull fighter is the real life bull fighter who appears in the Madonna videos.

I did not find this movie interesting at all, and I will try to give my reasons: firstly the movie was totally miscast. Ask anybody familiar with Spanish literature, and you will be told that Andy Garcia is quite unconvincing as that giant Garcia Lorca , for instance when reciting the fanmous "Death at 5 o'clock".The other personages don't do any better.Secondly, poor directing has turned it into a B,pseudo film noir, rather than a serious political thriller, and last but not least,since I saw it in the mutilated TV size Video I missed much of supposedly good cinematography.I hope somebody sometime will make a more dramatic film about the life of this great human being.

Ricardo Fernandez (Esai Morales) and his family escaped the Spanish Civil War to Pueto Rico 18 years ago. He wants to write about his childhood hero political writer Federico Garcia Lorca (Andy Garcia). He goes back to Spain to investigate Lorca's disappearance despite his father's concerns. As a child in Granada, Ricardo brought his family to Lorca's play. It is the start of the Spanish Civil War and Lorca is seen as a leftist agitator. Young Ricardo is taken with the charismatic Lorca.

This is an interesting historical drama. There is a bit of melodrama. The acting is good for the most part. It may be more compelling to concentrate more on Lorca and his life instead of the back and forth between the two time lines. It may also have more tension if the movie doesn't basically give away Lorca's end right from the start. I don't know anything about the real life of Lorca and it's nice to get a version of it here. The location shoots don't hurt either.

Though the costumes are nice, the movie is just too slow and muddled. I never get the feeling of Lorca's greatness from Garcia's acting. James Olmos is adequate, but not much else helps this to be a gripping story. I wanted to know a lot more about why Lorca was chosen to die. I don't think that the writers or directors put this across well.

This movie is about more than the murder of Federico Garcia Lorca. It shows the contrast between the artistic authority of anyone like Lorca and the power of the so-called authoritarian governments, such as the one formed by the Fascist party in Spain, 1936-1976. If you are creative in music, dance, theatre or art then you are the natural enemy of the power-hungry, who create nothing, and are compelled to disguise their inadequacies with culture they steal from you and those like you. They covet your authority, and what you make, in order to present themselves to the world as "authoritarian" and "cultured." But they are only impotent thugs. Too many Americans are sympathetic to such motivations and procedures, and find this movie confusing. These are the same uninquisitive folk who never notice that Spain was not involved in World War II -- Hitler occupied every country in northern Africa, Scandinavia and Europe, except for Spain. Why not? The Allies, relentlessly speaking out against the horrors of fascism, never said a mumbling word about Spain. Why not? I especially liked the movie because of Andy Garcia's portrayal of Lorca. His Lorca is intelligent, vigorous, creative, comfortable, confident and responsible.