Blood Wedding (1981 film)

1981 Spanish film

9 March 1981 (1981-03-09)

Running time

72 minutesCountrySpainLanguageSpanish

Blood Wedding (Spanish: Bodas de sangre) is a 1981 Spanish musical film written and directed by Carlos Saura. It was directed and choreographed in the flamenco style. It is the first part of Saura's 1980s flamenco trilogy, and is followed by Carmen (1983) and El amor brujo (1986).

The film depicts Antonio Gades and his dance company performing a flamenco adaptation of Federico García Lorca's play Blood Wedding. As with all Saura's flamenco films, the film is overtly theatrical: it begins with the company arriving at the studio and putting on costumes and makeup. The dance is then performed in a bare windowed space with a minimum of props and no set. There are no elaborate costumes and many of the actors wear only their rehearsal clothes.

It was shown out of competition at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival.^[1]

Cast

Antonio Gades as Leonardo
Cristina Hoyos as Bride
Juan Antonio Jiménez as Groom
Pilar Cárdenas as Mother
Carmen Villena as Wife

Influences

The video clip for Figlio della luna, the Italian version of the 1986 song Hijo de la Luna by Mecano, has a esthetic related to Blood Wedding.^[2]

References

^ "Festival de Cannes: Blood Wedding". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-06-07.
^ Peral Vega, Emilio (2024). "De mil y una historias". Mecano: Inspiración poética y genio musical (in European Spanish) (1ª ed.). Madrid: Guillermo Escolar Editor. p. 14. ISBN 978-84-19782-51-9. [...] acompañada también de un vídeo, excelente de factura y medios, dirigido por el propio José María Cano, en el que las reminiscencias lorquianas de la canción quedaban aun más en evidencia a partir de una estética claramente emparentada con las Bodas de Sangre adaptadas en 1981 por Carlos Saura