Agujetas, Cantaor.

Format:

Video

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Europe.

Spanish.

Local Subjects:

Europe.

Spanish.

Genre:

Documentary

Physical Description:

1 online resource (58 minutes)

Place of Publication:

Paris, Ile-de-France : Qwest TV, 1998.

Language Note:

In Spanish.

System Details:

video file

Summary:

The black and white film opens on a plowed field. We hear dogs barking in the distance, as a man sings while walking toward us. His weathered face is as sharp as the flamenco emerging from his mask of pain. Then he stops and says, "My name is Manuel de los Santos Pastor, Agujetas de Jerez, cante flamenco singer." Agujetas (1939-2015), born in Jerez de la Frontera, started work early in the family forge; he was illiterate. From his father, who was also a singer (Agujetas el Viejo), he inherited the cante jondo "in its purest form," as described by the great guitarist Moraíto Chico, also from Jerez, who accompanied José Mercé and Fernando Terremoto. The documentary, throughout which exquisite images follow one after the other (captivated audiences in white villages, landscapes burned by the Andalusian sun), shows Agujetas in his works, each seguiriya raised to the level of a tragedy. When he speaks, the Gypsy places his statements with the same aplomb as he sings: "Since I am a free man, I marry who I want. As it happens, a Japanese woman." A writer specializing in flamenco, Antonio García "El Platero" describes the phenomenon: "Agujetas’s singing is like whiskey when you drink it for the first time, rough." As dry as the land in which he remained rooted, Agujetas embodied his art in its most brutal expression, a combination of rigorism and a totally unique personality. This film brilliantly expresses what it means "to be flamenco." Eric Delhaye

Notes:

Title from resource description page (viewed July 15, 2024).