Highly Overrated But Still Good

A Surprisingly Unforgettable Movie!

A Masterpiece!

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The title of my review (if IMDb permits) is taken from a quote by Salvador Dali in 1969 regarding rumors of a Dali-Lorca affair. The full quote, epitomizing Dali's unbridled humor and arrogance is as follows:"He was homosexual, as everyone knows, and madly in love with me. He tried to screw me twice... I was extremely annoyed, because I wasn't homosexual, and I wasn't interested in giving in. Besides, it hurts. So nothing came of it. But I felt awfully flattered vis-à-vis the prestige. Deep down I felt that he was a great poet and that I owe him a tiny bit of the Divine Dali's a(..)hole."And with that, let's now talk about the movie.Although vividly denied by Dali, speculation of a romance between Dali & Lorca is the story of "Little Ashes". This is important to note up front, because if you're looking for a film that delves into the passion & inspiration behind Dali's art, Lorca's poetry and Buñuel's films, you'll be disappointed. This is mostly a straightforward love story with only a few substantial references to the 3 young men's creations (Lorca recites 2 poems, Dali displays 1 painting, and we get no more than 5 sec of Buñuel's film references, including the infamous slashed eyeball scene from "Un Chien Andalou").What makes this film separate from any other generic forbidden love story is the interesting portrayal of the characters. Whether historically accurate or not, their personalities jump out of the screen at you, particularly Dali played by Rob Pattinson a.k.a. the Twilight studmuffin. Pattinson's Dali is decidedly NOT a studmuffin but instead a very awkward, dorky kid which instantly reminded me of some of Johnny Depp's early roles ("Benny & Joon", "Edward Scissorhands", "Don Juan Demarco"). But fused with his dorkiness is an overbearing arrogance which comes to the surface more frequently as the film progresses."Little Ashes", however, is not about Dali and certainly not about Buñuel (who is really a minor character) but is mostly from Lorca's perspective. In that respect, it's fitting that the affair (which never happened, according to Dali) would be exaggerated and poetic. If you noticed in the Dali statement I quoted, he did admit that Lorca was "madly in love" with him, and that is what the film portrays in a very poetic and sentimental way.Although I was initially disappointed because I wanted to see more of Dali's art & creativity, I liked the forbidden, one-sided love story because it was well done and made good use of recognizable characters & events in history. Thus you could say I liked it in the end (uh, which is more than we can say for Dali. Heh heh).

Trying to cover up the personalities, the minds and the artistic and historical period of Spain in the 1920's and 1930's is a huge and difficult task and no film could ever capture and portray that in a positive way in less than two hours. "Little Ashes" is a small but good film that shows us few moments of that era in something we might call of a summary of events, and that's what makes this movie good but this also is his Achilles tendon, it might kill the experience (and it did to some viewers) of watching it and understand what the movie was since the film is too short and deals with too many subjects. If you know the period you'll get easily, otherwise you're gonna need to make a research on icons like Salvador Dali, Federico Garcia Lorca and Luis Buñuel and their meaning to the arts."Little Ashes" follows the friendship between these three artists, from the time they were students until the beginning of their careers and some of its famous moments, pictures, films, poems and all. More than that, the film explores a love relationship between Dali and Lorca, played respectively by Robert Pattinson and Javier Beltrán; and their involvement in art and revolutionary acts during Franco dictatorship. The rest is history, mentions of "Un Chien Andalou" (Buñuel & Dali film partnership) and the famous image of the eye; poems by Lorca; and Dali's strange magnetism as a bizarre figure with his surrealistic art and way of living and style.The film is panned and harshly criticized by many people complaining that everything in this movie is wrong, its inaccuracy in everything, and most of all that Pattinson is a terrible actor and he shouldn't portray Dali and things like that. My observations to this nonsense is that the movie succeeds in its attempt to cover the artistic period and of being a strange and romantic love story that sounds original, almost without clichés. There are some innuendos, many artistic licenses and some awkward moments and unexplained things (such as Buñuel being presented as half homophobic who seems to approve Dali's homosexualism but on the other hand he doesn't approve that Lorca is too, to the point of beating up a guy who wanted to have sex with him and he looked for this guy, he wanted. A very silly moment and totally unbelievable). As for the performances they are very nice, especially Javier Beltrán, who has an unique dramatic talent, the actor you'll want to see more and more in the film thanks to his ability to display a poetic emotion that seems to reflect the character very well, not much of an acting, it's more like a embodiment of Lorca. But this review cannot be completed without the Pattinson controversy. "Little Ashes" gathered a lot of attention after his role as Edward Cullen in "Twilight" since many twilighters wanted to see more of his films, and along with that attention came some of the critical examinations saying that he wasn't a good choice for this film, and others even worst than this trashy comments that said that a movie about Dali with Pattinson starring is unwatchable. Well, they are all wrong! He has a good performance despite being too handsome for the role, although his Dali's mannerisms might look as a caricature of the important artist, but after a moment he gets very similar to the real figure (that "crazy" look in his eyes is very similar). And more difficult is the portrayal of a man who seemed to have a peculiar view on the world, and a strange care for his sexuality, and with all that in mind we can't judge the actor for his role in other films, but only for what he did here and he did a great job. If "Little Ashes" was directed and produced by the cinema of Spain with Spanish actors, and if they have a fantastic budget to spend in producing a film with more than three hours covering until the final days of Dali and Buñuel (sadly, the movie didn't followed him much), it would be a spectacular epic film. But for what it tries to accomplish this film is a good entrance door in the lives of some of the most interesting minds of the 20th Century. 9/10

I can't help but be slightly worried about anyone that professes this to be the Best Movie Ever, it was really quite bad! I've marked it 2/10 purely for Beltran's performance but the rest... well, the accents made me wince & the acting was really quite wooden and awkward for the most part. As good an actor as Pattinson is, this was a disastrous bit of casting - I thought he actually looked a bit embarrassed at times.... I do believe this would have been a lot better if the whole cast & dialogue was Spanish with some subtitles for us; the story itself is an interesting one and it would have been much more believable - and much less distracting - if that were the case.

This film was shockingly bad. I actually thought it was a comedy. The costumes were like something from a school play . The era was totally wrong as regards set and costumes. This was supposed to be 1920's?? Hello! The 'acting' and i use that term loosely, was hilariously awful. Robert Pattison looked more like Dracula in a bad wig, than the avant garde artist Salvador Dali. His voice went from American Hollywood, to Irish, to really patronising Spanish. Pronouncing your TH..., does not a Spaniard make. His intimate scenes with Baltrain were heavy and awkward. He looked in pain, as i was too.The water scene was the most wooden, overblown, sentimental tacky scene I've witnessed for a long time. The only saving grace was the actor Javier Baltrain. He , at least had some morsel of talent. The actress Marina Gatell was bouncing around the screen from her first introduction. In one scene where she visits her aunt, she flounces off to the bathroom saying 'im gonna powder my nose' , hello did the script writers have any idea how it sounds?, or was she shooting up as well. !920"s ....erm? Gatell's mock rebellious acting , and inability to hit the marks was astounding. It looked like the director fell asleep. As for the cinematography, it was lack-lustre. To read the 'reviews' from well known publications was astounding!! "Mesmerising" said Attitude, another "Robert Pattison shines" , Get real. This Stinker was a total waste of time, and my evening would have been better served reading Lorca aloud. The fact that he was portrayed like this, is a travesty.