unknown artists, potes, fascists, and gypsies

Last night I had the mixed viewing fortune of watching "little ashes". I picked this one up from the 'new to weekly' shelf on noting it was about the deliciously nutty salvador dali - actually it's more about federico garcia lorca, the poet, but still. upon bringing it within close inspection range I realised that, OMfknGOD, everyone's favourite sad-sack-femmy vamp, eddie cullen (aka, rob pattinson) starred as the eponymous nutter. I couldn't very well walk away from that concept .... not at that price. to see the droopy toff try to pull off some actual acting was too great a temptation. besides, the sheer thrilling mystery of just why he'd been cast in such a challenging role had to be better understood. on that I remain unenlightened, but I digress .... made by poms, with a mixed cast of poms & spaniards but in english, sadly, the film is set during dali's college years (the 20's, my favourite era), when he fell in with and consequently caused trouble with, a blokey gang of lefty revolutionaries of various academic inclinations. apparently the details of this period of his life were shrouded in secrecy until he was virtually on his deathbed, so there's a sense of revelation and insight which is quite satisfying. generally speaking though, it's a love story - and in this aspect if none others, the film excels. starts well enough, with a musically accented man (who it transpires, is garcia lorca) quoting one of his poems, but soon falls into a sort of badly put together but could have been wonderful, almost great film. there's an intrusive soundtrack - during one or two 'meaningful' moments, you can actually hear violins. laughable. and there are some rather thinly drawn peripheral but important characters, and a tendency to rush some scenes which really needed more time. biggest problem though, is language. it REALLY should have been in spanish. moving on to rob pattinson ... I'm torn on this one. in some scenes you'd swear black and blue it wasn't him, such is his inhabitation of the character, others you just see ed cullen. his accent was really inconsistent, and he sometimes seemed unsure of how to arrange his features. essentially, he was surprisingly good in some scenes, woeful in others. either way, it was quite fascinating to watch him emote and do grown up stuff ... after all that buttoned up mooning and swooning, vamp style. oh yeah, in the beginning of the film he has a prince valiant bob (being the eccentric artiste and all) ... hilarious. it's a good thing he's as tall as he is else he'd have looked like a wee girlie :D the best thing about the film was the dude who played garcia lorca. stunning man. made rob pattinson look decidedly plain! and a fine actor with it, quite convincing in this role. really carried off the infatuation, the deeper love, and the subsequent anguish well. a couple of fairly graphic sex scenes, though neither are standard fare. one in particular, is ... ah .... unyewshall, to say the least. definitely one for the romantics .... the very very slow build of the romance is done unusually well, and is satisfying and authentic in feel. beautiful and moving. all up, while it was deeply flawed on a couple of levels, I really enjoyed it and would watch it again for it's lyricism and poetic flow. also a noice look at the private lives of creative genius, and a fascinating and turbulent time in 20th century art and politics. actually in writing this it's dawned on me that it might be a haunter. at least, I'm still swimming in the phosphorescence .... might have to watch again tonight