Carlos Saura’s ‘Fados’

To truly appreciate Carlos Saura’s “Fados,” you’ll need to know either Spanish or Portuguese and have an inkling of Portuguese history or a great love for the music genre, fado. Don’t despair if you don’t qualify–yet. Saura’s 2007 movie means to seduce, just like his 1995 “Flamenco” and his 1998 Academy Award-nominated “Tango.” Think of “Fados” as a beautifully packaged puzzle, presented with love to inspire love. Yet the importance of fado can’t be emphasized enough. Saura reminds us that it was a fado that began a revolution in modern times.

The movie begins with music, a single string instrument. Silhouettes walk from left to right. Behind them is the projection of a crowd of people, seemingly walking on a city street toward us.

The performers’ names slide by on a black screen slides. This is the only mention of them. When they appear, no subtitles announce them. The film’s Web site does list them with music samples. This is a movie definitely made for an audience in the know.  No over-explaining or pandering to the audience. As we watch the black shadows trudging by between the credits, a sad voice (Carlos do Carmo) intones in Portuguese “Fado da Saudade” and the lyrics are translated into English:

The sun rises on the city

Which enchants me

On my old Lisbon

Of another era

Like a lump of longing

In my throat

I listen to a fado that fades

On departing

A still black screen tells us that thousands people from the rural regions flocked to Lisbon and mixed with immigrants from Portugal’s colonies in Africa and Brazil in the 19th century. From these people sprang the music known as fado.

Saura divided the movie into segments with historical significance as if this was one intuitive music history lesson. In  “San Jon de Cabo Verde,” people are moving through corridors made up of large transparency screens. This seems to be an informal street party with drums and whistles (Grupo Kola San Jon). The Republic of Cape Verde is a small group of islands colonized by the Portuguese in the 15th century that gained independence only in 1975.

From here, we cut to see two musicians (Ricardo Rocha and Jaime Santos) playing string instruments (“Variacoes em La”) for the segment, “Variação,” meaning language or dialect. The screens behind them project enlarged images of these two musicians. Filmed like a concert, the camera will focus on the hands of the musicians. Using the screens, close-ups of the musicians faces behind them juxtapose close ups of their hands playing.

It is not until the next segment, “Moçambique,” (Portuguese for Mozambique) that we see and hear someone singing (Mariza performing “Transparente”). The blonde Mariza interacts with a male dancer while singing about how African drums were exchanged for guitars.

The movie then takes us to colonial times in “Modinhas  e lunduns.” A Modinha is a type of 18th century love song. Lundu or lundum  was originally the dance of African slaves brought to Brazil, that was adopted by the upper classes and became the first national dance of Brazil. The background suggests the interior of a stately old house. Young women in long, ivory-colored dresses dance barefoot fanning themselves as a young black man (Toni Garrido) sings plaintively “Menina Voce Que Tem.”

From there, we have a “Fado menor du Porto,” or a minor fado of the city Porto, the second city of Portugal. This beautiful segment is edited to interplay the musicians, singer (Camane) and dancers.  Dressed in brown Roman style gowns, the six dancers are projected several times on the screen behind them, just a little out of synchronization to create a wonderfully realized choreography to “Quadras.”

Then we move to the harsh tale about Maria Severa,  the first famous fado singer, charmingly sung by Catarina Moura who uses pictures to illustrate the story to her audience. The camera switches to scenes from the 1931 movie about Severa,  “A Severa,” the first Portuguese movie with sound.

Homages are also paid to fado singers Alfredo Marceneiro, Lucilia do Carmo and Amalia Rodrigues.  After seeing a black and white film of Marceneiro singing, we switch to hip hop artists NBC/SP and Wilson rap about the former carpenter (Marceneiro means woodworker, referring to his occupation). Allusions are made to other related music genre: flamenco and morna.

Yet as in “Tango,” Saura doesn’t shy away from disturbing historical events—that movie addressed the disappearance of death of thousands during the Dirty War (1976-1983). This movie has a segment, “Revolucao,” which shows sepia-toned footage of young people in the streets referring to the mid-1970s revolution that brought democracy to Portugal.

The movie ends in a café with walls completely covered with photos of famous performers in “Casa de Fados” as we are invited to a sing off of old and young fado singers.

“Fados” doesn’t have a plot. Without recognizing the faces of the performers and understanding the significance of the segment titles, it plays like a gorgeously shot and lit though very long music video. Only the lyrics are translated. Yet like “Tango” and “Flamenco,” it can seduce the audience into learning more about fado while preserving the best performances of dancers, musicians and singers of a genre.

For help on understanding “Fados,” see my informal guide made by using the press notes, my high school Spanish and Babblefish.

For more info: Go to the official Web site for the movie or to the Laemmle Web site for screening information.

Originally published in the Pasadena Weekly.