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.
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.