Named after legendary flamenco singer Camarón de la Isla’s groundbreaking record album (which, in turn, was inspired by the works of Andalusian poet, Federico García Lorca), Isaki Lacuesta’s The Legend of Time melds the improvised encounters of Johan van der Keuken’s ethnographic documentaries with the quotidian intimacy of Mercedes Álvarez’s El cielo gira to create a understated, yet meticulously observed meditation on grief, identity, and self-expression. Composed of two, self-contained chapters capture the disparate lives of figurative outsiders from Camarón’s ancestral hometown of San Fernando, Cádiz – a gypsy boy, Isra who decides to honor his father’s memory by refraining from singing during the family’s self-imposed period of mourning, and a young Japanese woman, Makiko who leaves her ailing father behind in order to follow in the footsteps of Camarón and learn cante by immersing herself in the culture – the film is also a lucid and thoughtful essay into the inalterable nature of change, resonance, and connectedness.Read More »
