By PETER CALDER
(Herald rating: * * * )
Algerian-born director Tony Gatlif, whose tributes to his gypsy roots, Latcho Drom and Gadjo Dilo, were among the sleeper hits of the 90s, here visits southern Spain, home of Spanish Romany's music of choice - flamenco.
The slender storyline, which perversely casts flamenco dancing star Canales in an exclusively dramatic role, concerns a blood feud between two families (the film's title is tellingly ambiguous in Spanish, meaning both "I come" and "I avenge") and it's easy to see from the opening minutes that it will all end in tears.
But the plot is little more than a framework on which to hang performances by some of the music's biggest names: Ahmad Al Tuni, sounding like a mystical muezzin, guitarist Tomatito, legendary female singers La Caita and La Paquera de Jerez.
The film's dramatic and documentary elements overlap clumsily at times - it lacks the narrative charm of Gadjo Dilo which took us deep into the heart of its subject matter by inserting a fictional character into a real world - and it is tempting to conclude that Gatlif would have served his material better with the swirling documentary style he employed in Latcho Drom.
Certainly the movie expects more love for flamenco than it fosters. The climactic performance by La Caita comes close to self-immolation as the music seems to be ripped out of her. But the landscape and the characters' musical bloodlines make it plain that Andalusia is closer to Arabia and Africa than Paris, and as a close-up look into a world apart, it's an extraordinary document.
Cast: Antonio Canales, Orestes Villasan Rodriguez
Director: Tony Gatlif
Running time: 90 mins
Rating: M
Screening: Rialto
Vengo
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