Review of Little Ashes (2008) by Rochelle C — 01 Feb 2010

I adored every absorbing second of this. Its low budget shows of course, but it has a great atmosphere and a fantastic group of actors. The only thing keeping me from giving it a full rating is that common language problem a lot of period-films hit upon.

It is made for an English-speaking audience, thus it is in English. I personally love subtitles, and aside from Pattinson, this is a Spanish speaking cast, so I'm given the impression that Spanish would have been doable, just probably not as profitable or accessible.

Pattinson does fairly well with the accent. He fumbles at times, but makes it up with a solid and at times breathtaking performance, especially as circa-1935 Dali. He plays insane impressively well. However, on this language debate, anyone who has seen a significant amount of period dramas (believe me, I've seen far too many) understands that a language inaccuracy is just part of the package.

I can forgive the film for it, because it does throw in many of Garcia Lorca's poems, recited in Spanish by Javier Beltran.