Sevillanas

We found this film in a small French store in Quebec......It is not easy to locate and this is the only version we have found in 9 years of shopping.......CARLOS SAURA directed SEVILLANAS in 1992........It is a Flamenco Classic Film .........This version of Sevillanas" consists of eleven short performances by Spain's most famous flamenco dancers, singers and guitarists. Saura, well- known for his flamenco films ("Blood Wedding," "Carmen" which we also have located), here provides an in-depth look at the Sevillanas form of flamenco and its dancers.......especially the duet with Manolo Sanlúcar and Paco de Lucía.......The version we found is 53 Minutes and is well worth viewing....

For `Sevillanas' Carmen Saura had not much option but to use a documentary form, as he simply linked together in no order a dozen flamenco artists - singers, dancers and guitarists - in a bare 50 minutes. The result is short and sweet, but evidently brings no depth to the subject: you might just be watching one of those `canned' ready-made musical programmes which are not much more than several video clips strung together and hurled at you from one of those sky channels.

The film has its moments: above all the duet with Manolo Sanlúcar and Paco de Lucía - which of course was far too brief. One cannot describe the deep empathy that flows between musicians playing this kind of music. You have to watch it and feel it. I will deal more lengthily on this matter in my comments on the biographical documentary of Paco de Lucía in about a week or so when it appears on IMDb. The documentary was shown here together with `Sevillanas' in a thematic programme dedicated to this great musician.

`Sevillanas' is a job half done for those of us who seriously would like a wider exploration of these exceptional musical forms, so unique to Spain, but now so universally acclaimed. Another fifty-odd minutes might have done something to remedy this feeling. In `Calle 54' (qv) Fernando Trueba did a much better job of exploring contemporary Hispanic jazz, an exquisite jewel.