Director Jose Alayón Unpacks San Sebastián New Directors Title 'Dance of the Living' John HopewellSeptember 20, 2025 at 1:17 AM 0 Courtesy of SSIFF There's a touching scene in Jose Alayón's "Dance of the Living," which competes at San Sebastián's New Directors, where one Canary Island wrestler has j...
- - Director Jose Alayón Unpacks San Sebastián New Directors Title 'Dance of the Living'
John HopewellSeptember 20, 2025 at 1:17 AM
0
Courtesy of SSIFF
There's a touching scene in Jose Alayón's "Dance of the Living," which competes at San Sebastián's New Directors, where one Canary Island wrestler has just won a bout, charging his opponent and upending him onto the ground. Both get up and the winner raises the arm of the loser and applauds him briefly in a sign of respect.
The loser is Miguel Bethancourt, the male lead in "Dance in the Living," once, one senses, a champion on Canary Island Fuenteventura's wrestling scene.
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In another scene, wrestlers sit at a bar, celebrating Miguel's birthday, cracking jokes, with the comfortable familiarity of people who feel accepted as part of their world.
When Miguel drives home with daughter Mariana, they pass walls of black rock, littered with shale, and then come into sight of a mountain rearing in the background which still catches the full force of the sun, looking as if it has plucked from the planet Venus.
Sold by Bendita Film Sales, ("The August Virgin," "Samsara," "Manas") "Dance of the Living" ("La Lucha"), Alayón's second feature after Slimane (2013), turns on Miguel and daughter Mariana's struggle to move forward after the death of wife and mother Pilar, herself a champion wrestler.
Their whole world evolves around traditional Canarian wrestling. But Miguel's has a chronic knee injury and Mariana rages at the world, pushing her to bite an opponent.
Canary Island wrestling is captured in three sections of the film, shot in a Neo-doc style, but focusing as much of the wrestlers' physique as success.
This is no road-to-glory sports movie. Rather, "Dance of the Living" – selected by Variety in a series of New Director features, in its San Sebastián Dailies – shows the wrestlers' whole world – Miguel's sister cooking, Mariana taking driving lessons on he island's dirt roads – and Fuenteventura's visual texture, whether the folds of a sunlit mountain, which looks like rough skin, or light in a valley at dusk, night and early dawn.
"Dance of the Living" weighs in as one of the highest-profile films to come out of the Canary Islands, where Alayón is one of their leading film producers, founding in 2004 El Viaje Films ("Slimane," "Dead Slow Ahead," "They Carry Death," "White on White").
Variety caught up with Alayón just before the world premiere of "Dance of the Living" at San Sebastián.
"Dance of the Living" captures bouts of Canary Island wrestling. The scenes are memorable. But the film goes beyond that to deliver a far broader picture of the wrestlers' world….
I took nearly two years to cast "Dance of the Living." All of its actors are wrestlers, or have wrestled. I already had a screenplay, but talking with them, we realized how wresting, la lucha, served to generates bonds, a society, which gave a sense to their lives. We had anticipated this when we wrote but they confirmed it. La lucha is a way of escape, allowing people to forget their problems….
But it goes beyond that, right?
La lucha was practised by North Africa's Berbers, when they settled on the Islands centuries before their Spanish Conquest. It gives a powerful sense of roots, of maintaining an ancestral Canary Island culture, a pride at belonging to something larger than themselves. It gives a powerful sense of roots, of maintaining an ancestral Canary Island culture, a pride at belonging to something larger than themselves.
And can you see this act of resistance as a metaphor for Canary Island filmmaking or filmmaking in general?
We all have our obsessions, united to our emotions, me as a cineaste, them as wrestlers. I sensed an identification when I saw the wrestlers practicing their locks, which are called mañas. They fall, get up, fall, get to their feet again, which is rather like shooting a film, shooting a shot, repeating, trying to construct something. But I think Canary Island wrestling is a powerful metaphor which can be applied to many aspects of life, ad is. Basic element of Canary Islands identity. If you ask me to describe their identity with three figures, one would be a wrestler.
Is Canary Islands wrestling growing?
There was a boom in the '80s, then it declined, but it's coming back again, especially in mid-sized villages and parts of the coast, in Fuerteventura, where we shot. Wrestling events are packed, wrestlers are stars. Wrestling is important in Tenerife as well, but found in all the Islands, with competitions between them. But wrestling sparks huge passions in Fuerteventura, which is one of the reasons why we shot there. Also, you have its mountains, its brutal landscapes. There a kind of parallel between the wrestlers' giant bodies and these giant mountains. We tried at least to play with this.
More to come
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