Little Ashes (2008)
Average Rating: 4.1/10
Reviews Counted: 68
Fresh: 16 | Rotten: 52
It has a beautiful cast, but Little Ashes suffers from an uneven tone and a surplus of unintentionally silly moments.
Average Rating: 3.9/10
Critic Reviews: 20
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 17
It has a beautiful cast, but Little Ashes suffers from an uneven tone and a surplus of unintentionally silly moments.
liked it
Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 78,942
My Rating
Movie Info
For years, scholars have debated the nature of the relationship between surrealist painter Salvador Dali and poet Federico Garcia Lorca; director Paul Morrison's Little Ashes delves into their personal interaction and their acquaintanceship with Spanish surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel, with whom Dali made L'Age d'Or and Un Chien Andalou. In 1922 Madrid, bohemian lifestyles are flourishing -- from the arrival of jazz music to the en vogue teachings of Sigmund Freud. As the tale opens, Salvador
Cast
-
Javier Beltrán
Federico Garcia Lorca -
Robert Pattinson
Salvador Dali -
Matthew McNulty
Luis Buñuel, Luis Buñu... -
Marina Gatell
Magdalena -
Esther Nubiola
Adela -
Bruno Oro
Paco -
Simón Andreu
Fernando del Valle -
Vicky Pena
Magdalena's Aunt -
Arly Jover
Gala -
Marc Pujol
Carlos -
Ruben Arroyo
Rafael -
Diana Gomez
Ana Maria -
Pep Sais
Art Teacher -
Joan Picó
Young Officer -
Ferran Audi
Guard 1 -
Adria Allue
Guard 2 -
Ferran Lahoz
Señor Milagro, Señor M...
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All Critics (68) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (16) | Rotten (53) | DVD (1)
A bravely earnest and gauzy bit of biography.
Top CriticBeltran, for his part, makes a solidly believable Garcia Lorca. The problem is with the man with whom he's obsessed. In Pattinson's performance, we never see what Garcia Lorca sees in Dali.
Even cinematographer Adam Suschitzky's richly textured and resonantly toned cityscapes and rural scenes can't make up for a flawed script and weak performances in what might have been a powerful historical drama.
What's intended to be a daring look at repressed sexuality, three-ways and all, has the dramatic heft of a true-love comic book.
Better to seek out these artists' works firsthand than to settle for this tame rehash, pretty as it may be.
I think you should go ahead and rent the movie.
It feels as though Morrison and Goslett are trying too hard to emulate the work of their subjects.
The drawcard of Robert ''Twilight'' Pattinson as Dali is a mixed blessing for the filmmakers, given how ill-at-ease he is in the role. Javier Beltran, as Garcia Lorca, cast as the heroic centre of the film, cuts a more confident figure.
A snapshot of an insight into the life of Salvador Dali, one of the most complex artists in history and it intensifies rather than satisfies our curiosity about him
A strictly genius guy thing billed as historical fantasy, as this trio of high IQ party animal sexaholics, among them a defanged low testosterone Pattinson as Dali, frolic at a college resembling an antique Animal House.
limps along about as lifelessly as one of Dali's melting clocks
Beltran tries to give this flimsy nonsense some weight, but Brits McNulty and Pattinson's attempts at a Spanish accent are woeful.
It's not even worth it for Robert Pattinson, who is shown in the movie, nearly fully naked, with his privates tucked between his legs, but everything else showing.
A Pretentious Mess of a Bio-pic In the Worst Sense of the Phrase.
The movie commits the error of scanting their cultural importance and fixating on Lorca's semi-requited love for Dali.
Sexual repression claims yet one more victim.
A dry, dull retelling of a typical gay coming-of-age tale that's invigorated by neither the period backdrop nor the fact that the characters were real people.
The movie, with its badly painted backdrops, its stiff acting and its complete lack of dramatic momentum, is embarrassing to watch.
Little Ashes is stylish enough to beguile and bold enough to provoke, but it's not bright enough to illuminate.
While it eventually improves, the first quarter-hour of Paul Morrison's drama about the youthful exploits of Spanish artists Salvador Dali, Frederico Garcia Lorca and Luis Bunuel is cringe-worthy.
An intriguing and muddled relationship between three brilliant artists is downgraded into a tedious and lurid art-world soap opera full of convoluted love triangles.
Audience Reviews for Little Ashes
Super Reviewer
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- Salvador Dali: From this point on, my real life begins.
- Federico Garcia Lorca: Your real life? And what about this life? You can't just abandon everything!
- Salvador Dali: Abandon what? Sitting in an art room all day, going out of my mind with boredom? Drinking myself into a stupor every night? I'm so sick of it!
- Federico Garcia Lorca: How can you say that? Your painting's never been better. This isn't you, Salvador. What's happened to you?
- Salvador Dali: Federico, why can't you just be happy for me?
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- Salvador Dali: If I'm going to be anything more than average, if anyone's going to remember me, then I need to go further in everything: in art, in life, in everything they think is real: morality, immorality, good, bad, I, we, have to smash that to pieces, we have to go beyond that, we have to be brave. no limit.
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Latest News on Little Ashes
May 14, 2009:
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Foreign Titles
- Sin límites (ES)
The story is well scripted with mostly good dialogue which sometimes is lost in the muddle of other noises and occasionally just becomes unhearable. The music however fits nicely and although doesn't boost the film still makes a fine addition.
The mise-en-scene in the film is very nice to look at despite one scene which I'm almost positive was a greenscreen, apart from that everything was beautifully shot amd framed in such a way that not only shows of the actors but the scenery.
Overall, not a great film but an enjoyayble one, it could of done with being 10 minutes shorter as it seemed like some moments were crammed in but for the most part it's an interesting insight into Dali.