Little Accents: An Illterate Kabuki Artist's Guide to Salvador Dali

Let's get this straight--if anyone must make a movie about three of the greatest artists that ever came out of Spain, the filmmaker should probably be, err, Spanish. Or, at least film the narrative in that language. I'm all for independent film, but Jeso Cristo, I get my panties in a bunch when they're as shabbily pasted together as a streetwalker at Moonie revival. Director Paul Morrison (surprisingly this wasn't his first feature film---it sure felt like it was) claims he didn't find anyone in Spain he could cast as Dali. Originally, pinup Pattinson had read for the part of Lorca, but Morrison earnestly claims, "But Rob felt so much more a Dali." Getting ahead of myself, Little Ashes concerns the love story between college friends Salvadaor Dali and the poet, Federico Garcia Lorca. Luis Bunuel, Spain's preeminent filmmaker (to this day, Pedro Almodovar is the only director to come out of Spain that could possibly rival the cinematic legacy of Bunuel) is also thrown into the mix, and, as is made obvious, was not involved in the love triangle. What stands on its own as lucrative material is here botched into a mediocre portrait of spoiled, rich young men using terribly awkward accents. I guess I don't understand---why bother having a Spanish accent? Just speak Spanish. They're in Spain. These pretentious Brits, I tell ya---these ballsy Hollywood highbrow films don't even attempt that (let's just say we believe for a minute that it was realistic to cast Kate Winslet as a German in The Reader 2008--however, I believe director Stephen Daldry is a Brit). What bothers me the most about Morrison's film is its unbelievably asinine attempt at showing us important historical figures without ever really detailing what they really accomplished. Yes, it's fine and dandy to have Javier Beltran (who portrays Lorca) recite several poems in Spanish (and an English translation voice over) but Morrison doesn't bother to explain why he is assassinated. Additionally, we never discover what an awful piece of shit Dali became, sans spurning Lorca. And then what a fuck you from one filmmaker to another---Morrison actually includes the historical and infamous eye cutting scene from the Bunuel/Dali film Un Chien Andalou (1929), but doesn't bother mentioning just how important Bunuel was to cinema beyond the surrealist film movement. Let's honor him here. Matthew McNulty, the British actor portraying Bunuel, stomps around on screen as if in an MAD TV skit. Seriously, Pattinson and McNulty are to be taken about as seriously as if, for some reason, Sean Penn was cast as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Both scenarios incite my wrath and anger. I mean, Bunuel is the man who directed: Belle De Jour (1967), Viridiana (1961), The Phantom of Liberty (1974), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), The Exterminating Angel (1962), to name a few. To Mr. McNulty and director Morrison, a big fuck you for being so uniformly awful. Why so much anger on my end? Let's face it, this film is only getting attention for one reason: Robert Pattinson. As this was filmed before Twilight (2008), the filmmakers were unaware of the cache of wealth right under their hairy nostrils. So a whole legion of teens and tweens have lifted this little film into indie heaven, but it's riding not on air but an amalgamation of nasty farts, expelled from the anuses and mouths of the pop culture maw known seductively, coquettishly, as Twilight. So what's a whole generations' first exposure to Bunuel going to be? This little Olestra laced turd. And as for Pattinson? Well, he's absurd and over the top--but manages to at least not leave the worst taste in my mouth. He's a mere caricature of what we'd expect someone playing Dali to be. He's trying. I believe he knows that the movie that's made him famous is a piece of shit and he's too polite to say it. And then there's this gay streak in the film---but it's pretty brief and about as believable as a Lassie horror thriller. The film tries desperately to be artistic, like a painting, of the two lovers kisses, caresses and pinwheeling in the water (a scene where I giggled at the obvious absurdity of it all). In the end, it plays like an after school special dealing with homosexual experimentation. The film doesn't bother to explain that Lorca and Dali fail to actually "get it on" because Dali was scared to death of syphilis. However, the director explains that it's not meant to be a biopic, but that "it just explores one seminal moment." I don't believe a word of it, and you won't either. A film that explores the "seminal" moment of two, and maybe three (the director can't decide) legendary artists does little to prove the extent of the effect they had on each other. Lorca's a weepy bourgeois who gets shot and Dali's a selfish asshole. According to Little Ashes. Sadly, this will be championed by Pattinson fans, be dismissed by critics only to be embraced by pop cult epigones everywhere. Did I say Fuck you Mr. Morrison? Well, third time is the charm, they say.