Dantza

Last Sunday, I went to cinema to see Dantza, a film by Telmo Esnal. It debuted last year during the San Sebastián film festival, where it received several awards. The film portraits the history of Tradicional Basque Dances, where nature is the pretext for telling the story. Dantza is a musical feature, full of symbolism and subtle narrative plot, the cycle of life and the history of humankind, which flows basically through the music and dance.

The story starts like follows, no spoilers. After a hard work time working the land, it grows a tree, that is soon attacked by sickness. This leads to a fight, where finally, the tree survives disease and it's able to grow fruits.

Apart from having an amazing scenery, this film is also remarkable for being able to translate traditional dances and customs to a big performance for the big screen. I loved this film and I was very amazed on how they achieve to make the story so appealing, even if they are not dialogues, no main clear characters and huge time elipsis that work perfectly with the story.

For having in mind what can you expect, take a look of this scene from the movie.

Image credits: Txintxua