Right at the start of the film, a brief on-screen text explains the millennia-old origins of lucha canaria (Canarian wrestling), a sport practised by the archipelago’s indigenous inhabitants and used, among other things, to resolve conflicts. After the Castilian invasion, the practice was cracked down on and ceased to hold a central place in island life, but it continued, and today it is a very popular sport. In fact, it lies at the heart of the lives of the protagonists of Dance of the Living, the second film by José Alayón, presented in the New Directors section of the 73rd San Sebastián International Film Festival. Miguel (wrestler Tomasín Padrón) and Mariana (Yazmina Estupiñán) are a father and daughter who passionately practise the sport and who are going through a tough period of mourning for the death of his wife and her mother, respectively.

The lucha canaria backdrop is not a mere pretext to frame an intimate, emotion-laden drama. By focusing on such a specific world – and on the human beings who shape it – the film crafts a deep, honest and achingly beautiful portrait of a unique place and the people who live there. The island of Fuerteventura looks resplendent on screen; the cinematography by Mauro Herce makes the most of the spectacular landscapes, but also of the bodies that move through them. Desert mountains and wind-swept roads combine into a hypnotic whole in which the characters’ expressive faces and the wrestlers’ striking physiques are seamlessly interwoven.

Dance of the Living is like its protagonists: restrained, austere and with little appetite for frills. It’s a film that doesn’t hide its cards up its sleeve, and one of its great virtues lies precisely in that honesty. It’s clear the filmmakers love their characters and what they represent. The love for the wrestling tradition – and for everything it implies within the Canarian way of life – is not so different from the love felt by the father and daughter at the centre. It’s not a love free of complications and conflict, but it is undeniably real, and it is as strong as the muscles of the athletes who grapple with each other, body to body, in the sand.

Another standout element is the film’s authenticity, helped by a cast made up almost entirely of real wrestlers from this discipline. From a screenplay by Marina Alberti and Samuel M Delgado (the director of They Carry Death [+leggi anche:
recensione
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intervista: Samuel M. Delgado e Helena…
scheda film]), the film interweaves seemingly mundane, everyday moments, thrilling wrestling bouts and episodes of intense drama, resulting in a moving whole that is as painful as it is luminous. In the end, what remains is the feeling of having inhabited a fascinating microcosm in which tradition serves as both glue and fuel for a group of humans facing life as best they can – sometimes overwhelmed by it, but always wrestling to find the strength they need to stay on their feet.

Dance of the Living is an El Viaje Films production, staged in conjunction with Colombia’s Blond Indian. Bendita Film Sales is in charge of its international sales.