Product Details

• Actors: Maria Campano, Giovana, Paco de Lucía, Enrique Ortega, Gómez de Jerez
• Directors: Carlos Saura
• Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: Spanish
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 3
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Eclipse from Criterion
• DVD Release Date: October 16, 2007
• Run Time: 275 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000TXNDVG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #63,627 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Eclipse Series 6: Carlos Saura's Flamenco Trilogy (Blood Wedding / Carmen / El Amor Brujo) (The Criterion Collection)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

In the wake of Criterion's release of Cría Cuervos, his haunting Franco-era allegory, comes Carlos Saura's famed trilogy, crafted in collaboration with producer Emiliano Piedra, cinematographer Teodoro Escamilla, and choreographer Antonio Gades. Blood Wedding (1981) starts out like one of Robert Altman's behind-the-scenes efforts. As the reed-thin Gades describes his initiation into dance, Saura captures every backstage detail, from the bickering of the musicians to the mementos the dancers scatter about their stations. The action culminates in a dress rehearsal of Alfredo Manas's Bodas de Sangre, a flamenco-ballet version of Federico García Lorca's play. On the day of her betrothal, the Bride (Cristina Hoyos) runs off with Leonardo (Gades), a married man. To appease his Mother (Pilar Cárdenas), the Groom (Juan Antonio Jiménez) sets out to avenge the family name.

In Carmen (1983), Saura's biggest international hit, he takes on Georges Bizet's operatic adaptation of Prosper Mérimée's novella. Fiction bleeds into fact as the performers incarnate their parts. The narrative begins with Gades's search for a dancer to play the tragic heroine. He finds her in headstrong hoofer Carmen (Laura del Sol) with whom he embarks on an affair. As with Gades, Cristina Hoyos plays a character much like herself, a dancer relegated to a supporting role (composer/guitarist Paco de Lucía also appears under his own name). Instead of a full-length performance, Carmen proceeds through a series of rehearsals and offstage encounters. The more time he spends with his leading lady--described in the text as a "she-wolf"--the more possessive Gades becomes. He demands fidelity, Carmen longs for freedom. Finally, in a fit of rage, he solves their problem--permanently. Manuel de Falla's ballet El Amor Brujo (1986) opens on a stage set made up like a gypsy village. (As with the previous films, there is no audience, though the dancers never break character.) Two men agree that their children, José and Candela, will marry when they are grown. The years go by and a wedding comes to pass, though Carmelo (Gades) secretly desires Candela (Hoyos), and Lucía (Carmen's Laura del Sol) feels the same about José (Jiménez). Then José is killed in a knife fight, but every evening Candela dances with his ghost, so she remains blind to Carmelo’s devotion. Of the trilogy, El Amor Brujo ("Love, the Magician") features the least dancing, making it less satisfying, but just as passionate--and more optimistic--than its tragic predecessors. For aficionados of dance on film, Carlos Saura's Flamenco Trilogy belongs on the shelf with The Red Shoes and West Side Story (his trio is also filled with finger-snaps and switchblades). For those who wish to dig deeper, Saura followed up with the related documentaries Sevillanas (1992) and Flamenco (1995), which would have rounded out this set nicely. As with the other entries in Criterion's Eclipse Series (focusing on international masters, like Ingmar Bergman and Louis Malle), this collection may be devoid of extras, but it still represents one of the best deals around. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

One of Spanish cinema’s great auteurs, Carlos Saura brought international audiences closer to the art of his country’s dance than any other filmmaker, before or since. In his Flamenco Trilogy—Blood Wedding, Carmen, and El amor brujo—Saura merged his passion for music with his ongoing exploration of Spanish national identity. All starring and choreographed by legendary dancer Antonio Gades, the films feature thrilling physicality and electrifying cinematography and editing—colorful paeans to bodies in motion as well as to the cinema that so eloquently, and artfully, captured them.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Saura/Gades' "Carmen" is the most sensual of all adaptations and truly Spanish, December 5, 2007

By 

Galina (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eclipse Series 6: Carlos Saura's Flamenco Trilogy (Blood Wedding / Carmen / El Amor Brujo) (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

Passionate, dramatic, riveting as Flamenco itself, the film is simply amazing. It is set on the immortal Bizet's music. The original music is written and performed by one of the greatest classical guitarists, leading proponent of the Modern Flamenco style, Paco de Lucia who plays a musician with the same name. Legendary Flamenco dancer and choreographer Antonio Gades co/wrote the script and choreographed this fabulous version of the celebrated Georges Bizet/Prosper Mérimée novella/opera. He plays a main character Antonio, the famous dancer/choreographer who works on retelling the story of Carmen in the Flamenco style that combines dances with singing and rhythmic hand clapping and has a highly charged level of dynamics that appeals enormously to the viewers.

Brilliant and graceful Cristina Hoyos whose technical excellence matches the elegant artistry of her dancing shines in the supporting role. Hoyos had been the first dancer in Gades' company for twenty years (1968-1988) and she was the protagonist of three films that Carlos Saura made of Gades' three great shows: "Bodas de Sangre" (1978), "Carmen" (1983) and "El Amor Brujo" (1985). Gorgeous Laura del Sol is a young dancer named Carmen in whom Antony sees from the first sight another Carmen, who was immortalized by two Frenchmen, the writer Prosper Mérimée in his most famous novella written in 1846 that had inspired George Bizet's world famous Opéra-Comique version from 1875.

As in the opera and in the novella, Carmen in Saura's film is desirable and deadly, the ultimate femme fatale who has to be free above anything else. She could not tolerate the possessive love of any man and would prefer death to submission. There are some 50 movie adaptations of the story and the opera to the screen, and as different as they are, they all have in common the only possible tragic end. Saura/Gades' film is unique as the most sensual of all and truly Spanish. I fell in love with it from the first time I saw it over twenty years ago and it is as special and beautiful today as it was back then. Highly recommended.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Saura's Flamenco Trilogy, September 19, 2007

By 

Lefty Mama (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eclipse Series 6: Carlos Saura's Flamenco Trilogy (Blood Wedding / Carmen / El Amor Brujo) (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

Saura's Carmen is a magnificent movie. It is about a flamenco troupe who is rehearsing a dance version of Carmen. The director and the lead dancer begin to act out the Carmen story in their personal lives. The famous opera songs come alive in a new way when performed in the classical folk style of Spain, as if we are outside a real cigarette factory listening to gypsy women dancing and making music and rhythm with their bodies spinning. The dance scenes have a fierce intensity that completely absorbs your attention like no other movie I have seen.

Blood Wedding and El Amor Brujo are more straightforward showcases of the most famous flamenco dancers in Spain doing what they do best - good movies, but without the high drama of Merimee's story and Bizet's tunes, the dancers are simply professionals at the height of their careers.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally on dvd!, October 3, 2007

By 

T. B. "Music fan" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eclipse Series 6: Carlos Saura's Flamenco Trilogy (Blood Wedding / Carmen / El Amor Brujo) (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

I've been looking for these to come to dvd for years. It's a fascinating and thrilling trilogy. The series starts with Blood Wedding, in which a filmed dance rehearsal draws the viewer into a compelling story. Carmen is a blend of reality and fantasy in which elements of the flamenco production spill over into the dancer's lives (or is it vice versa??). El Amor Brujo is a fully realized musical production, set entirely on a soundstage with lush colors, much like a 50s Hollywood musical. It's an interesting progression to consider and each of the films fantastic on their own terms.