Flamenco

It's a movie made with spanish sensibilities. If I was spanish and if I'd lived and breathed the flamenco, this is what it would look like. Proud, haughty, yet fun and bold.

The colour, rhythm and motion of the music, the singing and the dancing are captured. Captured and put on film to remind the viewer what good flamenco can be like.

It's flamenco for the modern age, yet, the costumes and the voices are old, old.

This film has well known artists, and it also introduces us to the up and coming singers, guitarists, and dancers.

I highly recommend this film to all fans of the art of flamenco.

This is a wonderful film! Full of passion, music and drama. It follows the story of the opera of the same name. Even Carmen-haters will agree that this is a version that overcomes the boredom bred of familiarity and infuses new life into this overproduced work.

The setting is a flamenco school in Spain, and the search is on for the star of a production of a flamenco Carmen. The director finds, and then falls in love with his new leading lady. The complications arise from there, from some unhappiness on the part of the best dancer in the troupe who feels she should be the star and not the newcomer, and from the storyline of the opera.

The director of the film is the real-life director of one of the most famous dance schools in Spain, and the dancers, except for the character of Carmen, are members of the school.

The dancing is exciting and dangerous, the story, though very familiar, attains fresh vigor in the new setting, and is altogether one of the best films of the nineties.

This film could have been quite good if only there'd been some explanation--of the performers, the culture, the songs, the country... Anything. But there was nothing beyond a line or two at the very outset. From that point forward, it was nothing more than music videos. One performance after another, with no more information than the song name provided. As a fan of flamenco who knows very little about the culture it arose out of, I'd have appreciated much more background info. Buena Vista Social Club, a film in the same genre, did this beautifully. It detailed the performers, the history of the music, the songs. Because it did none of this, Flamenco was boring. What is more, the camera work is at times quite awful. Why the extended, extreme tonsil-shot closeups of singers?

This movie is a fantastic piece. You should enjoy the ambience inside of that hall. The dancers and the music is great, it's authentic. This movie is good for everybody how knows that flamenco is a spanish dance. See this movie and you'll know that flamenco is a way of life.

This brilliant work by Carlos Saura is a marvel to view.The lighting of the simple sets is stunning while the performers show the development and the history of the flamenco.The music, the dancing and as said before the lighting of the sets are breathtaking. An other companion film to watch would be Carmen by Carlos Saura one of my all time favorites. In Flamenco I would have liked to have seen a little more pair-dancing.