The following is one of the entries from my 100 Greatest Films from Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal list, which I invite you to visit on this site if you haven’t already done so. — Dennis
Since the nineteenth century, the wistful, melancholy fados of Portugal have been a tradition of music—sung, danced, performed by instrumental groups—that bespeaks the sense of separation of those who moved to Lisbon from rural Portugal and from Portuguese colonies in Africa and from Brazil, which Portugal likewise colonized. Separation: separation of present from past, of place to place, “the memory of those departed like the wind.” One sings of “my old Lisbon of another era.” Another: “The wind blows too hard for me to rest.”
One of the three or four most brilliant musical films ever, Spain’s Carlos Saura’s Fados, filmed on a Madrid soundstage, records the ache of separation that is the fado’s soul, but also combines past and present to ease the ache, as when contemporary dancers make their moves in front of a huge screen on which is projected a fadista from the past in performance. The film’s opening movement, as the credits appear, suggests the heart of Saura’s method: A black screen moves steadily screen-left, revealing a huge screen on which is projected images of Lisbonians in the street walking towards an invisible camera, separated from dancers dancing in front of the screen in haunting silhouette, in effect, ghosts separated from their own substance. Throughout, Saura orchestrates performers in the flesh (sometimes, their faces move in and out of shadows), silhouettes, mirror images, multiple exposures and back projection to indicate layers of separation. Love is uncertain in some fados; in one, the singer pleads against the possibility of romantic rejection, while in another another singer has already been rejected: all this another elusive embodiment of separation.
The ultimate fado that Saura shows performed is the most stirring, aching lament imaginable. It is the soul in full in its divided state.
B(U)Y THE BOOK
MY BOOK, A Short Chronology of World Cinema, IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FROM THE SANDS FILMS CINEMA CLUB IN LONDON. USING EITHER OF THE LINKS BELOW, ACCESS THE ADVERTISEMENT FOR THIS BOOK, FROM WHICH YOU CAN ORDER ONE OR MORE COPIES OF IT. THANKS.
Dennis Grunes 