La leyenda del tiempo

Writer/director Isaki Lacuesta's La Leyenda del Tiempo (The Legend of Time) marks the second major cinematic project within two years to devote itself to the life and work of the late, internationally revered flamenco singer Camarón de la Isla (who died of lung cancer in July 1992), after Jaime Chávarri's critically worshipped docudrama Camaron: When Flamenco Became Legend (2005). As opposed to a straightforward biopic in the Chávarri vein, the Lacuesta film charts the musical and cultural impact of de la Isla's work and suspends itself halfway between traditional scripted narrative and straight-laced documentary. Lacuesta splits the film into two back-to-back, tangentially related sub-stories that never intersect. In the first, Isra, a young boy born on de la Isla's native island of San Fernando, reveals great talent by singing in public, but refuses to perform after his father dies. Instead, he spends his time quarreling with his brother and showing off for his girlfriend. In the second tale, a Japanese girl, Makiko (Makiko Matsamura), travels from Japan to San Fernando and seeks out de la Isla's brother (Jésus Monje Pijote), hoping she can convince him to teach her how to emulate de la Isla stylistically.