Asesinos Inocentes

A reed whose stem is shaken by the power of Zephyrus and Boreas, standard-bearers of the struggle amongst contraries; a string, tighten and unruly, stubbornly fighting the luthier’s fingers. Or, why not, the puzzling conundrum opposing flesh to spirit, Manichean thinking of Greeks and Christians that once marked the thin line dividing both realities…These are only some of the images a few sublime scholars have used (In illo tempore: in those times) to explain the concept of equilibrium: size, measure or harmony, however you choose to call the whimsical quality of human nature.

A reed whose stem is shaken by the power of Zephyrus and Boreas, standard-bearers of the struggle amongst contraries; a string, tighten and unruly, stubbornly fighting the luthier’s fingers. Or, why not, the puzzling conundrum opposing flesh to spirit, Manichean thinking of Greeks and Christians that once marked the thin line dividing both realities…These are only some of the images a few sublime scholars have used (In illo tempore: in those times) to explain the concept of equilibrium: size, measure or harmony, however you choose to call the whimsical quality of human nature. This ever-present idea of Budas, Christs and ascetics has driven many unsuspecting thinkers crazy, when, be it by conviction, be it by need-sometimes one has to candidly believe some lies in order to eat, or otherwise end up rambling wildly- they devote their lives to search for that ultimate harmony making sense of things. Maybe it is in cinema music where this duality shows itself more evidently, displaying the abyss sometimes existing between director and musician. Cervantes, not a Buda, nor a Christ, no ascetic either, is just a narrator in search of the complicity binding both plots, that is: the musical plot and the literary one. Thanks to his work’s originality, the so sought after balance in a film is displayed before the spectator.Searching in my selective, fanciful memory, I find some of Cervantes’s works (talent and trade mark imagination), that can make sense of all that has been presented so far. Works as You are the one, Merry-go-round 1950, Story of a Kiss or Innocent Assassins, are living proof of something changing in the Spanish musical map. Perhaps Innocent Assassins’s score, film directed by Sevilla-born Gonzalo Bendala, is the best to get a glimpse of Cervantes’ innovative personality, a true keeper of the bond between music and image. Pablo’s work spans cleverly through all the genre film’s patterns, providing enough balance to the story to make of this made in Spain thriller an interesting exercise in cinematographic tension. The tempo is spot on because nothing is left to improvisation. The musician acts as a master of ceremonies, weaving delicate melodies and, in doing so, dismounting the spectator’s perception, an act of anticipation very dear to this musical genre. The tension is cut short near the end by a music conveying eternal gratitude, bearing inside an emotional conversation. The glances in the protagonists’ eyes, echoing liberation and forgiveness (absque culpa), become in Pablo Cervantes’s hands the perfect, emotional end. His direct, unspoiled music thaws the emotions and makes more credible the plot, something indispensable for this kind of story to work. Innocent Assassins means a step further in his versatile career, proving, piece after piece, the original nature of his handwriting.

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