Little Ashes

Presenting Luis Buñuel as boisterous and domineering, Salvador Dali as an insecure, pretentious performer and Federico García Lorca as a tortured romantic, Little Ashes tells a tale of (mostly) forbidden love amongst Spain's most notorious (partially) Surrealist gang of rebels. It simplifies these larger-than-life figures, whose known work expands far beyond the character attributes demonstrated in this film, reducing them to one-note signifiers to further a queer agenda. Identification filters through Lorca (Javier Beltran), the political martyr, as he and Buñuel (Matthew McNulty) develop a close bond with Dali (Robert Pattinson), an overly affected new student at their University. Brief mentions are made of their art and politics, with Buñuel idealizing France as a bastion of freedom, but mostly we get Lorca giving Dali doe-eyed glances when not ignoring the flirtations of his writer friend, Magdalena (Marina Gatell). While these romantic complications do indeed provide ire and tension, putting ideology to the test with a homophobic, gay-bashing Buñuel (a potential cinematic embellishment), a lack of vested energy in surrounding narrative trajectories limits the overall experience. The only moments filmed with passion and intensity are those of homosexual desire, with the camera lingering on brief kisses and touches, relegating Magdalena's pain to a clumsy scene of realization, with a requisite second-long sad expression, and Buñuel's contribution of a few uttered "faggots" and an unexplained change of heart. Even the climax of the film — a tragic end that most of us are familiar with — is limited to a brief scene of street panic, jumping sloppily to the inevitable conclusion. Had equal amounts passion and subtlety fuelled sequences unfortunately deemed erroneous (along with significant character consideration), this interesting tale could easily have gone from curious failure to a sweeping emotional success. As it stands, Ashes is little more than a slight to the men it portrays, boasting a handful of powerful moments, but mostly flat plot machinations. Included with the DVD are cast and crew interviews.