Murder, blood feud, revenge, murder - to passionate music, in thrilling
over-the-top performances.  It's not "Il Trovatore," but it has a lot of
Gypsies and they - or rather their music - win the day.  I heard the best
Azucenas of our time and none comes close to the scary, violent power of
La Caita.

The glory of Tony Gatlif's "Vengo" (coming to US commercial distribution)
is its music, rarely-heard, marvelously authentic flamenco singers and
musicians - but it's flamenco you probably never heard.  The music of
"Vengo" has nothing to do with nightclub-flamenco or even the good but
prettied-up flamenco in Carlos Saura's films.

Gatlif revels in the ancient, Middle-East-connected music of the Roma,
based on "cante," with sparse instrumental accompaniment, the voice front
and center, dance merely incidental.

The language is Spanish, but the sound is Arabic, Hebrew, Muslim, and it
comes from the gut with blood-curling power - a cross, if you can imagine,
between Leonie Rysanek's Ortrud and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan at his most
ecstatic.

There are unique combinations in the music - the magic guitar of Tomatito
with Ahmad Al Tuni, an Egyptian Sufi singer, La Caita and La Paquera -
two grand singers who rarely appear in public, heard only within their own
small communities although revered by lovers of the "real" flamenco, and a
17-year-old from Seville, Remedios Silva Pisa, with a voice from ancient
Central Europe.

A complaint: music takes up only about half of the 90-minute film, and -
worse yet - the CD is not (yet?) available in the US.  Otherwise: see,
hear, and be amazed.

Janos Gereben/SF
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