David Ferguson Greetings again from the darkness. The pitch for this movie might have come across as blending a Greek tragedy with a romance novel, and then adding a dash of revenge. Fortunately director Paula Ortiz's vision for the Federico Garcia Lorca play "Bodas de sangre" is more poetic and lyrical than such an overview would suggest.Love triangles are the core of many stories and movies, but it's the opening sequence here that clues us in that the trouble has already occurred, and though it removes some of the suspense of "what", it certainly sets the stage for an interesting "how" and "why".Beautiful Inma Cuesta plays Novia (billed only as the titular bride) who is engaged to Asier Etxeandia (billed only as Novio, the groom). The abundance of family stress (on both sides) has little to do with the wedding plans, and more to do with Leonardo (Alex Garcia). Leonardo is more than the local hunk who is always lurking about on horseback; he's also the third wheel who can't let go of his desire for Novia … in spite of his young child and pregnant wife. To make things messier, Novia seems to answer his heightened desire for her with her own uncontrollable passion for him.It's Yin and Yang. Safe and Dangerous. The bride's conflicted choice leads the groom's mother (Goya winner Luisa Gavasa) to be a foreboding presence throughout, and keeps most of the village on edge. Additionally, there is an element of mysticism as Maria Alfonsa Rossa appears periodically as the figure of death – and we are never quite sure of the motivations behind her advice.Goya winner Miguel Amoedo provides beautiful cinematography that balances between fantasy, harsh realities, and the romance of the moment. There are many intimate close-ups, as well as some stunning desert wide shots of Leonardo riding the horse. The score and soundtrack are terrific, including Soledad Velez with a haunting version of Leonard Cohen's "Take this Waltz".The concept of destiny vs. choice hovers over most scenes, and the twisted family and childhood histories give the film a Shakespearian feel. Last year, the film received numerous Goya nominations (including Ms. Cuesta, Ms. Ortiz, Mr. Garcia) are resulted in the wins for Ms. Gavasa and Mr. Amoedo. It may not make the best Valentine's Day date movie, but it is an interesting watch from the romance-tragedy-revenge-horseback genre.

markpucuchu Clebras and Rgfraiz should probably stick to blood and gore Hollywood made crap and the ever overrated Tarantino. This is a beautiful movie which speaks many idioms and yet no particular language because you have to decipher it yourself and it relies on one's own experience of life, love, desire, valid or repressed and forbidden to associate with this movie and its author. And with the book in particular. Every single choice whether it be the location(the DRY WHITE desert) to the houses which look more like ruins to the underlying stories. There is more than just a blood feud between them and the story with La Novia's mother which none of the above have understood and the reluctance of Le Novio's mother for her son to marry this particular woman......etc. There is just an immensity of codes and ciphers that need to be heard, seen and understood to appreciate this film,i.e CULTURE. Which to my despair seems to be more and more lacking nowadays. Better watched and understood in Spanish, including the dialectic words used. Or read the book before watching the film. Agree, not for everyone. But good movie. And Inma Cuesta is so good.

clebras Everything you need to know about the characters and plot can be gained from reading the Wikipedia synopsis of Blood Wedding, the 1933 tragedy by Federico García Lorca. It was so bland. It was beautiful to look at in an artificial way. It wanted to be poetic, but I don't think it was. The metaphors and visualized symbolism seemed very wooden and there was no subtlety. This being a Spanish film about a love triangle with three attractive lead actors, one hoped for some sensuality but there was as much as you would find in a coffee or chocolate advertisement. Some pivotal scenes felt like one of those kind of commercials.What I liked was the snorting stallions. There was some nice photography of a horse. The scene from a distance of the line of cars and people traveling slowly in a procession to the wedding reception was memorable because of the lighting. I did rather like the final (SPOILER alert – and really, if you know the Storyline of Blood Wedding its no spoiler) double murder scene – where the two men confront each other and the woman tries to stop them killing each other – in the background was the song by Leonard Cohen, Take This Waltz, which I really know well and love – sung in Spanish (with subtitles, thankfully). This really made the scene for me.But after the song when the stabbing was done, came the bad. The hammiest part of the film was at the end of this song, when the two men are dying after stabbing each other and The Bride (her character's name in the film and Lorca's story) is between them crying at Leonardo's face, while he dies, while The Groom holds her from behind while he dies – their positions are an exact duplicate of a dumb scene from the beginning when they are all 15 years old and The Bride and Leonardo were in love and The Groom loved the bride as he still does in this later time period. So hammy and just bad. What it should have had: Spanish art films can have male nudity, it's been done in films that have been widely released. All I would have liked was something to acknowledge that Leonardo was only wearing an open shirt with nothing at all underneath in his final scene of confrontation and fight with The Groom. They had some angry lunging about with blades of twisted glass, and just a couple glancing shots of an awkward flopping cock – and maybe an acknowledgment of how difficult it must have been for The (petite) Bride to get Leonardo's mostly naked corpse up on the (very tall) stallion – and something like a shot of him just lying there on the horse with his bare ass up - would have given these scenes some valuable realism. But that was not what this film was. It was a "Romantic tragedy". No realism whatsoever.If you wanted to leave realism well behind, what would have made it better would have been a mash up with The Hateful Eight. I imagine a scene a few days later where the four primary female characters all confront each other and very bloodily get killed off or commit suicide. With gallons of blood. There were no likable characters in this film, just like those Hateful Eight. So really, none of them deserve to outlive this story. The Bride should die and actually wants to die at the end, so have The Groom's Mother take her out, it would give her some blood that that woman desperately needs to shed a ton of. The Mother also would greatly appreciate the opportunity to kill off Leonardo's vapid infanticidal wife due to the blood feud with Leonardo's family and The Groom's family, they killed her husband and oldest son. Leonardo's Wife isn't someone you can like - she also has nothing left to live for – she just suffocated her infant son after only hearing a far away cry of The Bride in the wind - so – another death that really would have no negative consequences. As a funny aside, maybe The Mother could also kill off the busy-body neighbor woman who spent so much time trying to talk The Mother into being calm and letting her worries about the wedding go for the sake of a woman's love of their grown son, and also telling The Bride all about proper behavior at their wedding. That nosy bitch should die, she was so tediously dreadful. Then the Mother can bloodily kill herself, I really doubt she would have any qualms about it at all. She would be joining her husband and older son who were killed in this stupid family feud with Leonardo's family. The Bride's Dad is a doddering, harmless fuzz ball, he will continue to make his glass horses and vessels and will likely soon forget that his daughter is dead. He's seems unconnected to other people and doesn't have the passion to warrant his death in this story. That's my review for a film I thought rather sucked. If I get complaints I will delete it.

Reno Rangan Based on the old Spanish play about a wedding tragedy. It all sets in the rural Spain and tells the story of a bride who involved in a love triangle. It takes us back to her childhood day to reveal us her crush on one of two friends, but feudal between the friends families puts her in a tight spot. Especially as growing up knowing she has to choose one of them to marry. Finally the time comes to that, the day is set for the big occasion, but an unexpected twist brings a chaos during the celebration and the old rivalry awakens among the young generation.It was a little dull narrative, mostly because of the quietness and lack of depth in both the character explorations and the story. I might say it is only a finishing touch work, we can't get any details we want for a better understanding, especially the past events remains slightly mysterious like how it all began. That's fine, because they thought they chopped away the boring stuffs, and yes they did, yet that did not bring any good result either.Anyway, this film's focus was the three friends who grew up together, so this story is only about what happens around them. Beside them, the old woman who often appears is a puzzle that's need to be explained. But I assumed she's kind of witch who manipulating the peoples mind to go against each other.Since it revolves on a wedding event, I was desperately looking forward the ceremony to begin. That's the other reason I felt letdown for it to delay. Until then the pace was too slow to keep myself engaged with this, but once the celebration began, it lit up my mood and followed by the conclusion that came with a light speed. So I kind liked the third act in the entire narration and according to me, that's the best part of the film."Bitterness is the worst punishment of all."There's nothing much happens in the story section, we can easily know what's coming up next after the each scene. Because like I said, there's no great developments, everything was about getting ready for the marriage and during the marriage. It is like learning everything about it prior to the watch, yet the final scene, the solution was stronger than I expected. For an end like that I expected tearjerker atmosphere. The emotions showed between the characters, but for the viewers those are ineffective.Shot in the cool places, I mean it looked like a semi-desert that did not bring the Spanish atmosphere of my knowledge, but blended well with the story. The character executions were fine, even the direction was good, but the writing was a disappointment. This 80 year old story needed a serious update, because the presentation was very stylish, but the tale was so simple. Yes, it looks so simple to follow, but complicated to fully understand it.Just keep in mind that it is not a romance nor a revenge film, but a slice of equal both. About other things as well like love, life, family, culture, especially the three main characters linked with, such as the bride's choice, the groom's fate and the their friend's deception. This is definitely not an entertaining film, not for people like me, but what I call it is a story to decode. Like in the line of 'Enemy', 'Upstream Color', 'Borgman' et cetera. There're lot more about it than what actually the story tells, but only discussing with others who had watched it will bring the details out. Honestly, I was not very impressed with this, certainly not a bad film to ignore it completely.6½/10