Blood Wedding

Carlos Saura's 1981 film shoots Federico García Lorca's play not on a stage but in a rehearsal room. Antonio Gades's dance company arrives one morning, puts on make-up, warms up and runs the dress rehearsal once from beginning to end. The camera watches. There are no sets and no audience, only mirrors and bare walls. Lorca's story concerns a bride who runs from her wedding with a former lover and the blood feud that follows; Saura delivers it without a word spoken, through flamenco and movement alone. The knife fight in the last section moves at a tempo that feels like slow motion and shows that dance and violence belong to one language. It is the first of three films Saura and Gades made together. Who it's for: viewers who love dance films, flamenco and Lorca. Who it's not for: anyone wanting narrative cinema and dialogue; the film speaks entirely through the body.