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The spirit is willing, but the moustache is weak.
As a young Salvador Dali in Paul Morrison's Little Ashes, erstwhile vampire-teen-throb Robert Pattinson doesn't exactly embarrass himself. But the limits of his nascent performing skills become clear when the moment that is supposed to signal Dali's full-grown leap into adult icon status -- his return to Spain as the toast of Paris, complete with his trademark lip twirl -- is just distractingly ludicrous, like prop facial hair from a bad play.
It is, however, an eyebrow-raising moment in an otherwise dull movie about the complicated school-chum relationship between Dali, the poet/playwright Federico Garcia Lorca (Javier Beltran), and surrealistic filmmaker Luis Bunuel (Matthew McNulty).
Like Brideshead Revisited without any payoff, the film devotes itself largely to their time as schoolmates, where Dali is introduced in his brief awkward and insecure phase, a goth dandy spending most of his time looking at the ground, while the gregarious Bunuel literally plays matchmaker to two "geniuses."
Though little has ever been established about Dali and Lorca having a physical relationship, little is left to innuendo in Little Ashes, and their debates on art are punctuated by bouts of intense face sucking.
Dali soon channels his insecurities into huge displays of drunken egotism, even as his significant artistic other becomes more earnest and socially conscious in the ominous pre-fascist Spain. He's the guy who drunkenly scandalizes a table of society matrons and army officers, and does likewise with a tribunal of his art professors, dismissing them as swine herders.
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Playing the dilettante is the least challenging of the major roles. Beltran makes the most of his, particularly in the scenes where he recites his own poetry in Spanish, overdubbed in English. At least it hints at what made his work special. We get no sense of Dali's artistic impulse, and even less of Bunuel's, other than a couple of seconds of footage from the Dali/Bunuel surrealist film masterpiece Un Chien Andalou -- including the infamous eyeball-slicing scene.
Little Ashes does manage to squeeze some drama out of Un Chien Andalou (An Adalusian Dog), since the Andalusian-born Lorca considered the title a thinly veiled insult.
There is nothing in Little Ashes itself, however, that hints at the kind of irrepressibly transgressive spirits that could produce Un Chien Andalou. The closest the movie gets is a scene where Lorca's lover (Marina Gatell) shows up in his room with amorous intent as Dali semi-hides in the corner. They have sex, with full knowledge of Dali watching, a voyeuristic scene that still manages to convey ennui.
Once out of school, Little Ashes (the title refers to a painting that Dali made of himself and his friend, which prompts Lorca to remark that in 80 years they'd all be ashes) seems stolidly set on the course of historical events without much thought or stylistic bent.
Lorca's life-endangering political activism runs counter to Dali's flip dismissal of all seriousness, though he worriedly tries to entice his friend to join him in creating a scandalous musical to take to America.
In the end, Little Ashes is a sophomoric take on giants of 20th century expression that offers little insight. It's like a tale of the world's greatest comedian told without a sense of humour.
But at least it'll probably dissuade Pattinson from growing a moustache anytime soon.