Vengo (2001)
Film:
DVD:

Written by Tony Gatlif & David Trueba, based on a story by Gatlif
Directed by Tony Gatlif
Starring Antonio Canales, Orestes Villasan Rodriguez, Antonio Dechent, Bobote, Juan Luis Corrientes

Features:

• Los Almendros-Plaza Neuva: a short film
  
• Interviews with actors Canales and Dechent
  
• Writer/director Gatlif filmography
  
• Theatrical trailer
  

Released by Home Vision
Rating: NR
Region: 1
Anamorphic: Yes.

My Advice: Rent it.

You'd think Caco (Canales) would be on top of the world--after all, he's head of a powerful gypsy family in the local community, and apparently has all the pull needed to throw amazing parties filled with music, drink and dancing. But his brother has killed a member of a rival family and has had to go into hiding, leaving Caco in charge of protecting his brother's son, Diego (Rodriguez). Worse than living with the knowledge that their enemies will take their revenge on Diego if they can't find Caco's brother, Caco's daughter had died sometime before--and he's never recovered from her loss. With such pressure and such emptiness in his life, will Caco be able to figure out how to make everything right before it all explodes in his face?

The overall problem with this film is that it should have, in my opinion, been two separate films--one for each goal that the filmmaker had in mind. First up is the story of Caco, the brooding, drinking, melancholy patriarch who is trying to deal with keeping his nephew alive. This might have made for an interesting film by itself, but it's terrifyingly slow and very, very little happens. Instead, we get more brooding from Caco, punctuated by the occasional irrational act. And its ending is so inevitable and obvious that you wish it had happened an hour earlier. It might have made for an interesting twenty minute short subject, but not an entire feature.

The portion of the film that works--and works very well--is the focus on flamenco music and the performance styles of the Andalusian region. The six minute jam session that opens the film alone is worth the price of admission. But the passion from both dancing, singing and playing buoys up the rest of the film. I almost wish Gatlif had opted to make a documentary about the musicians involved than placing them into the midst of a contrived fiction. Seeing the performances in the film will certainly make you crave the soundtrack.

The interviews with two of the actors involved are basically the usual stories of how they got invovled and how great everyone was to work with--except they're subtitled of course. No, the prize amongst the features is the short film Los Almendros-Plaza Neuva, which does more in a little more than twenty minutes to portray the culture of the gypsies than the feature film does in its entire running time. Through the interaction between a bus driver and the gypsy community he drives in--as he goes from not understanding this weird culture he finds himself in to finally understanding and rolling with it, even coming to respect it--we're treated to a marvellous bit of humanity and an example of how just a little bit of understanding can go a long way. Sounds hokey, but it portrays this better than I can describe it here.

If you're a sucker for flamenco, you might want to have this on your shelf, but if nothing else it's worth renting for the music and for the bonus short film.