What really happened between Surrealist painter Salvador Dali and poet/activist Federico García Lorca when they were together at university during the 1920's?
In 1969, Dali told Alain Bosquet that the homosexual Lorca was, "madly in love with me . . . He tried to screw me twice . . . I was extremely annoyed, because I wasn't homosexual, and I wasn't interested in giving in. Besides, it hurts. So nothing came of it."
Scriptwriter Philippa Goslett believes there was something more between the two men.
"Having done a huge amount of research, it's clear something happened, no question," she told the Guardian newspaper in October of 2007. "When you look at the letters, it's clear something more was going on there.
"It began as a friendship, became more intimate and moved to a physical level . . . (Dali) said they tried to have sex but it hurt, so they couldn't consummate the relationship. Considering Dali's massive hang-ups, it's not surprising.'
In the Paul Morrison film Little Ashes, she tells how a romance between Dali and Lorca might have played out. Starring a pre-Twilight Robert Pattinson, Spanish actor Javier Beltran, and Matthew McNulty (Control), the film is a dialogue between two artistic geniuses, one who would be destroyed by the Spanish Civil War, the other by his own myth.
Little Ashes Stars Robert Pattinson, Matthew McNulty and Javier Beltran
In 1922, an 18-year-old Dali (Pattinson) arrived in Madrid, and met two people who would also take the art world by storm: Surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel (McNulty) and Lorca (Beltran).
At first, they seem like an odd match: the awkward, flamboyant Dali and the resolute Lorca, beginning to discover his inner fire and reason for being. But they are clearly attracted to each other, much to the horror of the macho Buñuel, and writer Magdalena (Marina Gatell) who is herself longing for Lorca.
At first, it seems that Beltran is doing a much better job with his portrayal than Pattinson: the former is all fire and passion while Pattinson seems passive and remote when their attraction hits a critical point.
But, as the film progresses, the true texture of Pattinson's performance emerges: if his Dali seems hollow, that's because there was a vacuum at the heart of this artist. The real-life Dali was a construct, built to hide a hollow core.
But, in a pivotal scene, the film lays bare the man behind the curtain. It depicts Dali, watching in anguish as Lorca makes love to a woman: an impotent spectator who cannot be with the man he loves. The scene was loosely based on real-life events – Dali was a known voyeur – and it's a crushing insight into the man's psyche.
The rest is known to history: Lorca would be kidnapped and executed in 1938 under mysterious circumstances. In the film, Goslett points to Lorca's politics, although most believe it was his sexual orientation that sealed his fate.
Dali would go on to become one of the most controversial figures of 20th Century Art: admired for his genius, despised for his politics (he supported the Fascist General Franco) and – due to claims that unscrupulous dealers convinced the elderly Dali to sign sheets of paper which they would screen prints onto and pass off as originals – his paintings don't sell as well as they should.
The Final Analysis
Twilight fanatics will likely be horrified at seeing Edward Cullen sucking face with another man – or they might be deeply aroused. Who knows?
Either way, Little Ashes is the compelling dialogue between two men: one who lived life "without controls" and one who may not have really lived at all. It gets an 8/10.
