Jose Arallon’s “Dance of the Living” has a moving scene. This will be playing for San Sebastian’s new manager. There, Canary Island wrestlers win matches, recharge their opponents and cover them up on the ground. Both wake up, the winner lifts the loser’s arms and praises him temporarily with a sign of respect.
The loser is Miguel Besancourt, the male lead of “Dance in the Living” and has the sense of being the champion of the Canary Island Fuenteventura wrestling scene.
In another scene, the wrestler sits at the bar, celebrating Miguel’s birthday, cracking jokes and having a comfortable familiarity with people who feel accepted as part of their world.
When Miguel returns home with her daughter Mariana, they pass a wall of black rock, scattered with shales, visible in the mountains raised against the background of still captivating the full power of the sun, still captured.
Bendita Film Sales, (“The August Virgin”, “Samsara”, “Manas”) and “Dance of the Living” (“La Lucha”).
Their entire world evolves around traditional canary wrestling. However, Miguel suffered a chronic knee injury, and Mariana was furious in the world and made her bite her opponent.
Canary Island Wrestling is filmed in three sections of the film, filmed in neodog style, but focuses on the wrestler’s physique as much as success.
This is not a glorious sports film from the road. Rather, “Dance of the Living,” chosen as a variety of new directorial features for San Sebastian Daily, shows the whole world of wrestlers. Miguel’s sister dish, Mariana, is taking driving lessons on the dirt roads of his island.
“Dance of the Living” is heavy as one of the best profile films coming out of the Canary Islands. Arayan is one of their leading film producers, founded in the 2004 EL-AE films (Slima, Dead Throw, Carrying Death, White of White).
Variety caught up with Arayon just before the world premiere of “Dance of the Living” in San Sebastian.
“Dance of the Living” captures a Canary Island Wrestling seizure. The scenes are memorable. But the film goes beyond that and offers a much broader picture of the wrestler world…
It took me nearly two years to cast “Dance of the Living.” All of the actors are wrestlers or are wrestling. I already had the script, but talking to them, we realized how Resting, La Lucha, helped create bonds, which is the society that gave them a sense of their lives. When we wrote, we were expecting this, but they confirmed it. La Lucha is a way of getting away, allowing people to forget about their problems…
But that’s beyond that, right?
La Lucia was practiced when the Berbers of North Africa settled on the islands centuries before the Spanish conquest. It gives you a powerful sense of roots to maintain the culture of your ancestor Canary, the pride of belonging to something greater than you. It gives you a powerful sense of roots to maintain the culture of your ancestor Canary, the pride of belonging to something greater than you.
And can this act of resistance be seen as a phony of Canary Island’s filmmaking and filmmaking in general?
We all unite in our feelings, I am united as cineaste and they are united as wrestlers. I felt my ID when I saw the wrestler practicing rock called Manhas. They fall, get up, fall, get up again, it’s more like filming a movie, filming a shot, repeating, trying to build something. But I think Canary Island Wrestling is a powerful rationale that can be applied to many aspects of life. Identity of the basic elements of the Canary Islands. If you ask me to explain their identities in three numbers, one will be a wrestler.
Is the Canary Islands growing wrestling?
There was a boom in the ’80s and then declined, but it’s back again, especially in the mid-sized villages and parts of the coast in Fuerteventura, where we filmed. The wrestling event is packed and the wrestlers are stars. Wrestling is also important in Tenerife, but it is found on all islands and there is a competition between them. But wrestling inspires a great passion for Fuerteventura. This is one of the reasons we filmed there. You also have that mountain, that cruel landscape. There is a kind of parallel between the wrestler’s giant bodies and these huge mountains. At least I tried to play with this.
More coming
