FlamencoIn Production at CSV |
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DirectorGloria Kim | The Rojo Group are a group of Toronto flamenco dancers who are making a film about a dance school putting on a stage production of Carmen, with filmmaker, Gloria Kim. Gloria insists that she will cast an outsider, Camilla, a better dancer, as the lead in the film. The dancers are unsettled by the beautiful stranger, particularly the other lead woman, Lola, as sparks fly between Camilla and Lola's lover, Alexander. The group proceeds to start shooting the stage portion, set in the wandering Romany caravans of 19th century Andalusia. But the setting strangely transforms from the theatre to an actual gypsy camp in Andalusia, Spain. Suddenly Camilla, Alexander and Lola are no longer actors, but real Romany gypsies and the actual love triangle between Camilla, Alexander and Lola inverts the Carmen love triangle in the Andalusian gypsy camp. As the story intercuts between the reality of the stage show, and the outdoor gypsy camp, we begin to question, what is really going on? And how far can obsession take someone when it is fed by isolation and loneliness? A short dance film, Flamenco is an exploration into the nature of loneliness and how it can precipitate a wildness of imagination. It is also a visual commentary of traditional narrative and archetypes using the art of flamenco as the vehicle. Artistic Statement: The Story and Themes From Bizet's opera, Carmen is about a gypsy femme fatale who seduces a hapless Spanish soldier into leaving his childhood sweetheart. But after he does, Carmen spurns him for the love of a bullfighter. In a jealous rage, the soldier kills Carmen. I love the story of the femme fatale. An ancient archetype, the femme fatale or bad girl is the sexual creature or "madwoman" with uncontrollable emotions and appetites. But being a woman, I see this archetype differently than as seen through the traditional male gaze. In literature or film, the femme fatale is usually calculating or crazy. From Barbara Stanwyck in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity to Catherine Trammell in Paul Verhoeven's Basic Instinct to Alex Forrest in Adrian Lyne's Fatal Attraction to Bertha Mason in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, they are the antagonist and positioned to be despised and condemned for being devious and wild. In Carlos Saura's 1983 film, Carmen, an intense choreographer seeks the perfect dancer to play the femme fatale lead and falls in love with her. In his conceit of story within a story, Saura has the choreographer and dancer mirroring the lives of the characters of soldier and gypsy, and the choreographer kills the faithless dancer in a jealous rage. What I set out to do with my story and my Carmen is to displace the madwoman from her position as monster and put her in the privileged place of protagonist. To me, this character is someone who is sexual and she suffers from intense loneliness and isolation. It is loneliness that causes her to experience her "madness". These themes open up for me tremendous possibilities for playing with storytelling. Post-modern art-making has allowed us to question the very forms we use to make art. In keeping with the themes of isolation and madness, my aim was to break the fourth wall, question the form of filmmaking and yet also really use the visual medium of film to its most effective by playing with POV, playing with the idea of the unreliable narrator and shooting to reveal only bits and pieces of what's going on in the love triangle, using techniques like mise-en-abyme and metafiction (by putting myself in the story as the director character) so that I am not only telling a straightforward story about love, obsession and lust, but visually reflecting a mind in madness or outside the norm and further, making a statement about the unreliability of thought processes, which in turn mirrors our questioning the reliability of the kinds of narratives we tell, which loops back to questioning the accepted archetype of femme fatale or madwoman. Ultimately, this is a story of loneliness and how the mind can play tricks on us when we're so isolated. This is something that I think we can all relate to. The devices I am using, mise-en-abyme, metafiction, POV and unreliable narrator are meant to symbolize the themes of mis-perception and mis-understanding, or madness that comes from loneliness and isolation and engender in the audience a similar feeling of displacement. Producer: Coral Aiken Cast Camilla Anjelica Scannura Alexander Keon Mohajeri Lola Ana Lia Garrido Susannah Angela Deiseach Ben Benjamin Barrile Key Creatives Choreographer Carmen Romero DOP Greg Biskup Production Design Jennifer Thomas Costume Design Amanda Gougeon Hair & Makeup Jessica Panetta Editor Maureen Grant Sound Editing & Design Fred Brennan Composer Benjamin Barrile | Medium: HD Category: Art Produced at: Charles Street Video Year: 2013 | ||
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