DVDs in Review

Little Ashes

Title: Little Ashes (2008)

Release date: July 13 2009

Certificate: 15

Format: DVD

DVD RRP: £15.99

Rating: 3/5

'Little Ashes' covers a fascinating period of history in which artist Salvador Dali, filmmaker Luis Bunuel and writer Federico Garcia Lorca became close friends during the 1920s. Dangerous new influences including jazz music, Freudian psychology and subversive, avant-garde art are becoming popular in minority groups and are shaping the world.

Dali is both shy and drastically exhibitionist when he arrives at university in Madrid, attracting Bunuel and Lorca, and eventually a sort of love story emerges between Dali and Lorca. This breed of ultra-hip friendship obviously doesn't go down well back in those days.

Robert Pattinson (the current Hollywood dreamboat and star of 'Twilight') offers a refreshingly vibrant take on Dali, and his presence will surely mean that many more people will be seeing this film. Javier Beltran is much more sensitive as Lorca and Matthew McNulty is a little overlooked as Bunuel.

The famous collaboration for the short film 'Un Chien Andalou' (in which an eyeball is sliced on film) is one such highlight in a film that offers a very rose-tinted condensation of history, set amid a complicated, moving relationship.

The trouble is that the relationship isn't granted much depth, only musings and lush cinematography. Indeed, 'Little Ashes' is a very watchable, and at times fascinating little film, but it lacks true power. Had the subjects not been as famous, this film wouldn't have got off the ground. As it stands, 'Little Ashes' glides beautifully but never triumphantly takes off.  

This wonderful looking film is available on DVD through Spirit Entertainment. Needless to say, it's a must for the thousands of Pattinson swooners. And for the rest of us, it does prove something else - he can actually act.