Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) was Spain’s most acclaimed playwright (Blood Wedding, Yerma, The House of Bernardo Alba ) and poet of the 20th century. He was also openly gay and a vocal opponent of Francisco Franco’s Fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War. Consequently, he was killed by Fascist soldiers. Last year, director Paul Morrison, working from a screenplay by Philippa Goslett, released Little Ashes, an exquisite drama that focuses on Garcia Lorca’s relationship with the Catalan surrealist painter Salvador Dali. It has just been released in DVD.
The film begins in 1922, as Garcia Lorca (Javier Beltran) and Luis Bunuel (Matthew McNulty) arrive at a Madrid art school. They are soon joined by the eccentrically dressed Dali (Robert Pattinson). Art – cinema (Bunuel), literature (Garcia Lorca), or painting (Dali) – consumes them. So does their friendship. Bunuel is intensely homophobic, perhaps because he is subconsciously attracted to one or both of his companions. One night, seeing two gay men together, he shouts that maricones (“faggots”) should be shot.
Thinking of Rob 