Little Ashes [MA]

A story of art, love, and betrayal. Robert Pattinson is Salvador Dali in the beautifully crafted and artistically genius Little Ashes.

It seems that I'm going on a graphic drama spree today. First Precious and now Little Ashes. I hired this movie to see Robert Pattinson step out into the more artistic style of film, and I'm very very very glad I did so. Robert delivers a stunning performance in this wonderful and artistic drama.

Spain in 1922. The country is dominated by churches, the army, and landowners. Conservative morality is influencing all spheres: social, artistic, and sexual. Salvador Dali is young, talented, eccentric, and studying at the Academy of Fine Arts with playwright Federico Garcia Lorca and film maker Luis Bunuel. Whilst at school Salvador experiments with images, sexuality, and perspectives. This is his story.

Robert Pattinson is a genius. Producing a stunning performance, he plays the eccentric extremely well, maybe a little too well? Between his early bouts of shyness to his passionate fits of insanity, my eyes were constantly fixed on the screen. I was completely hypnotised for the entire film.

It is such a beautifully crafted movie, as I mentioned before. Everything flows so smoothly and it was balanced perfectly with black and white snippets of violent footage of the cold reality. There is one scene that was absolutely mesmerising. A scene where Salvador and Federico are swimming together. The water that drips from their fingertips is slowed and lit in such as way as to look like magic or falling stardust. It was the very image of the word "fantasy."

It was amazing to see the character of Salvador change so dramatically. At the beginning he's shy and stands out, but by the end he is proud and almost narcissistic. But all the while, you can tell that he is confused. I cannot put into words how beautiful Robert was in this movie! It was nothing short of magic.

A truly powerful and mesmerising film, Little Ashes shows us the life of Salvador Dali whilst he was studying in Madrid. Full of power, passion, love, betrayal, and art, I was totally and utterly hynotised the whole way through.