Jornal da Mostra
Subscribe here the 'Jornal da Mostra'
Edição:
Renata de Almeida e Leon Cakoff
Mexican film “El Violin” is among the outstanding films in latin-american cinema
of applause for a film, ever, by Festival viewers.
The driving force for the film is the impressive acting on the part of seventy-year-old Don Angel Tavira, also a violinist in real life and the source of inspiration for this tense, touching film. He plays Don Plutarco, who, with his son Genaro and grandson Lucio, live a double life: as musicians, as peasants in real life and collaborators in the peasant guerrilla against an oppressive military government. Any reference to Chiapas is mere suggestion.
Luxurious photography in black-and-white goes back to the golden years in Mexican cinema with Master Gabriel Figueroa. Many of the sequences in "El Violin" seem more of a tribute to this era. The character Don Angel is the taut link between both sides in conflict. Because he is fond of music, the army captain allows the violinist to return once more to his shack (where ammunition lies hidden) thereby allowing him to leave each day for the hills where his family and many other refugees are making ready the Resistance.
The affinity between Don Angel Tavira and Director Francisco Vargas is considerable.
Although short, all of Vargas` career has been devoted to the violinist, discovered
by the director in Tierra Caliente, in the Mexican state of Guerrero. Don Angel
has played the violin since the age of six, thus contributing to preserve the
musical heritage of his community. Only at the age of 60 did he finally register
with The Morelia Music Conservatory, to learn how to transcribe into scores
the musical tradition he had inherited by ear. This was how Vargas filmed his
first documentary "Tierra Caliente... Se Mueven los que la Mueven",
in the year 2004. The following year, the director presented the shorter version
of "El Violin" to the Cannes Film Festival Cinéfuondation.
The leap forward for this new version raises the feature by Francisco Vargas
to the category of a new classic in Latin-American film making. A touching film
for audiences the world over.
For further information:
www.festival-cannes.org
