Chavela Vargas and film

He said goodbye with a smile full of tears, as any of his songs, which are tears with laughter. Because Chavela, first inhabitant of the boulevard of broken dreams, there is always an acceptance of the tragedy, a life with grief. Not even fear death, as noted in a recent interview with El Pais : "I do not mind death. And it can be something beautiful, why not. But the point is to live as I have lived: 93 years on earth. " So we went our Chavela Vargas, with a final reminder to Mexico to Spain and to his beloved Federico Garcia Lorca, who speaks under the moonlight.

Chavela Vargas is a torn voice that burns a deep moan sacrifices, cohabiting, who would listen. Mexican immortal, despite birth in Costa Rica, she alone has removed the male genre of music of their country, the truck, causing an apparent opposition between voice and addressee: both are women. Because she inserted the lesbian desire in the depths of masculinity usually singing songs written for men, and thus became the margins of culture, in the last stage of subversion. Listen to Chavela is to drink one hundred tequilas for obnubilarse, to break the clocks and live in a single moment of tears, she always moves towards the end of the song.

And so it came to Spain in the nineties, and without tequila bottles under his arm, but his voice as a standard, because as he said: "I came from hell, but I did singing." In that state he met Pedro Almodóvar, first in a local suburb of Mexico, but all his affinity developed in Spain. He became ambassador of his music with the imprint left by his plaintive voice on film, and with it would debut at the Olympia in Paris, where Lola Beltran had just arrived. Almodóvar himself has spoken of his complicity with it in an article titled Farewell Farewell Volcano , "she left me the alcohol and snuff and in those moments were like two withdrawal syndromes together." Thus began an intensification Chavela relationships with film, which appears on the soundtrack of numerous films of La Mancha. Here are aware of them and some famous mergers of their voice in the film plane:

Think of me - Luz Casal in High Heels (1991)

At first it was just the verb. For the voice put Kanye West, but the song came from Chavela Vargas and their devastating performances. Becky del Páramo, played by Marisa Paredes played in playback, so heartbreaking, this song of longing for his daughter in prison (Victoria Abril) is a cry of nostalgia. I put the piece of film, because although not sing Chavela, is interesting as a starting point for the analysis of landing in Almodóvar's films:

In the nightcap - The Flower of My Secret (1995)

In the nightcap, the writer Leo Macias (Marisa Paredes) leaves the bar, avoiding drifting into alcoholism after the abandonment suffered by her husband. In the last drink is a song by the intoxication of indifference: "I want to see know what your forgetting / not put your hands in my eyes. " This time, Almodóvar shows an absolute respect for the singer, it does not include it as a soundtrack extradiegética, but directly to a television films in which they are singing with her legendary Chavela poncho. One way to indicate the identification of song, singer and character: all these lives are connected by a dissatisfaction of desire that has led them to wander through the depths of alcohol. The song serves as a catharsis to the character, such as awareness, just as music, Chavela, serves as a way to purge the penalties.

We - Flesh (1997)

In the midst of poverty in the suburbs, and engrossed in the problems of everyday life, two bodies are able to escape from routine and build an abstraction erotic two bodies manage to reconcile their borders bypassing the authority of the time. And all in a single plane: the two bodies filmed in profile to the hips, showing indifference first love, the absolute loss of the principle of individuation. And what better accompaniment to overcome the linearity of time everyday We are, Chavela, a thunderous song about impossible love, but it explodes: "We are two drops of tears / In a song / Nothing more." Chavela takes the role, disappear diegetic film sounds and only two textures: the voice of the Mexican and erotic bodies. Almodóvar seeks to create the sphere of love culminating by deleting all references to the outside and building a strong atmosphere with the voice of Chavela.

Moonlighting - Kika (1993)

In Kika, under the moonlight, the voice of Chavela traveling from balcony to balcony, serving as a common thread of tragedy. Again, the lack of love and memory as the only means of survival, "Well since you been gone / I have not had moonlight," says the letter of this intimate song. So Almodovar's camera rises from the balcony of Kika (Veronica Forqué) to the upstairs neighbor (Bibi Anderson), showing the route the universal human pain. I leave the video, the fragment corresponding to the track is located at 2 min:

La Llorona - Frida (2002)

This biopic of Frida Kahlo, starring Salma Hayek and directed by Julie Taymor, with the involvement of Chavela Vargas as a performer, playing to death. Chavela itself developed an intense friendship with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, as embraced in his house for a period of his life in Mexico, and many say that Chavela had an affair with Frida. But whatever it is, gives us his cries Chavelita La Llorona, that flow in a crescendo to the climax of tears "If you already have given you life, Llorona. What more do you want? Want more? ". Also singing Paloma Negra, which also ends with a final full of rage against the abandonment: "And you caught yourself carousing." Almodóvar himself narrates the feeling that this interpretation of La Llorona, in his later years, he produced:

The best versions of 'La Llorona' interpreted them in his last concerts. Approached the song with a whisper, and continued in that tone, reciting word for word, until the epic finale. Sing sing what is said just sang the last verse, in one way upward to shout his last brief word. "If you weeping as you want, you want to love you more. If you already have given their lives, weeping, what more could you want. Want More! "Shuddered to hear the word" more "shouted by Chavela.

You get used to me - Babel (2006)

And Mexico's Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu also defended his compatriot Babel Chavelita in through the song you got used to me. This love built by contact, it is impossible to demolish, serves as a framework for a wedding scene, one of the few hopeful moments in a film that seeks to address the lack of communication: thus, the wedding is one of the close contacts between two beings, but its future is ominous and narrated by the song itself, which gives the ceremony tragic overtones. Future and present come together in a film clip to the rhythm of music again, Chavela's voice is the voice of command in the film.

Photos: Venezuela a day