This is a brilliant film, one of Carlos Saura's best. It is essentially a ballet, laced with gorgeous music and moving photography. I've seen it three times and have enjoyed it more each time.

This isn't a teen flick, of course, and will not appeal to everyone. But for people serious about music, dance, and drama, this shouldn't be missed.

Formalismo, that school of Hispanic literature that emphasizes form as function, or form over function, has little to do with Saura's EL AMOR BRUJO. This is Saura's final work in his flamenco trilogy that began with BODAS de SANGRE and includes CARMEN. As with those two films, Saura bases this cinematic ballet on a previous work, Manuel de Falla's EL AMOR BRUJO. The other two films in the trilogy were based on Lorca's BODAS de SANGRE and Merimee's and Bizet's novel and opera, CARMEN. These three classical works are not examples of formalismo. Rather, they are prime examples of both the realistic and impressionistic schools of literature which under the creative mastery of Saura become sensual re-creations of love, passion, betrayal, and death. The love stories here supercede form and attain a thematic content worthy of the great literary works they portray. The starkness of the set is for symbolic purposes and not for form nor for function. The dilapidated, dusty set represents the emptiness of the soul that has lost great love, or has been deceived by a bewitching love. The set takes on color when Candela dances the Fire Dance, and again at the end when Lucia sacrifices herself to be the eternal lover of the bewitching ghost of Jose, thus setting Candela free from his cursed memory. Saura never lets us forget the tension between reality and fiction as the dawn rises on a new day over a theatrical set free of obsessions with death and love that bewitches the lover.

In a Gypsy village, the fathers of Candela and José promise their children to each other. Years later, the unfaithful José (Juan Antonio Jiménez) marries Candela (Cristina Hoyos) but while defending his lover Lucía (Laura del Sol) in a brawl, he is stabbed to death. Carmelo (Antonio Gades), who secretly loves Candela since he was a boy, is arrested while helping José and unfairly sent to prison. Four years later he is released and declares his love for Candela. However, the woman is cursed by a bewitched love and every night she goes to the place where José died to dance with his ghost.

"El Amor Brujo" is the shooting of a magnificent Flamenco ballet and third and last movie of the Carlos Saura's trilogy. The story based on the ancient tradition of promising children to marry each other has love, passion, betrayal, death, lust and redemption, with the lead character tied and being consumed by her unresolved desire for her former husband. The lighting in the set is impressive and the dances and the music score are awesome. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Amor Bruxo" ("Warlock Love")