Final Rating: 3.5/5
Antón Álvarez, also known as C. Tangana, became one of the most vital voices in Spaniard music. His 2021 record, “El Madrileño”, is a hit record and got five nominations at the Latin Grammys—also, his NPR Tiny Desk concert on the album amassed over sixty million views on YouTube.
In the introduction of La Guitarra Flamenca de Yeraí Cortés (The Flamenco Guitar of Yeraí Cortés), Antón sits in a restaurant with red decoration. He stares at the camera and narrates an anecdote of a party he got invited to during the album’s popularity. At this party, his flamenco idol, Montse Cortés, was performing. Passionately, he talks about how he could only observe the kid playing guitar beside Montse. The guitar player was Yeraí Cortés, a singer-musician who would record his new album, and Álvarez decided to document it. Three years later, he debuts as the director of full-length projects with this documentary.
The intro by Tangana is compelling, yet the texture of the film he shoots pre-announces a mature visual aesthetic by the debuting artist. He uses 16mm and 35mm film to bring the audience closer to a personal level. Even though the music would connect Yerai and Antón, the film is about the tragedies and traumas of the rising star.
Cortés comes from a gypsy family – his community holds secrets and distresses that echo in his songs. In a moment, the singer confesses to the director how he feels living in two different realities. In Madrid, he is an acclaimed artist; however, a weight brings him down at home. Similarly, the feeling translates to the screen through the division into blocks. The musical moments represent the healing music has in the community environment. It is a catharsis that impresses in sound and visuals. The cinematography in the film portrays a representation of their reality eternalized in celluloid, and the unity with the Flamenco music emotionally uplifts the audience.
Therefore, the director invests in the personal sphere of this history. It focuses on the complicated relationship between Maria and Miguel, his parents, who do not talk after their divorce. Correspondingly, the emotional core of the film is Yerai’s trauma with the death of his sister, Tania. The sub-plot takes most of the film to express the blank space she left on him and how he searches for responses in the universe.
Music and spirituality are the healing elements of his grief, aside from his relationship with Tania. She is a skeptical woman, yet she believes in the astrological alignment that united them. Tangana utilizes the deep bonding with his subjects to explore where it still hurts. He tries to read to Maria one of Yerai’s songs about his sister, but the wound is open. That family cannot confront their ghosts and expel them from their lives. Thus, Yerai recorded his album, which shares the same title, eternalizing his feelings towards Tania and moving forward.
The virtue of the proximity and the personal aspect of the film is also a barrier to the full development of this story. Sometimes, the events and pains cannot exceed their microcosm. It feels too intimate to share with the world, and the family may not be ready yet. The second half does not accompany the first moments of catharsis and emotive approach to this story.
Still, Álvarez sculpts musical scenes that feature a visual care to their composition that fascinates for a first-time director. The use of the film explores the colors and texture of the screen, especially in the final half, where red becomes the visual guideline of the film. Yerai has a hole in his soul, and the red denotes, in a straightforward metaphor, the violence of missing someone. Ultimately, he mesmerizes with musical moments that employ the melodramatic element of Flamenco to narrate this tragedy.
In The Flamenco Guitar of Yeraí Cortés, Spaniard superstar C. Tangana lives a different persona, now as the director. Besides an element of the story that feels too personal and distant in moments, Álvarez digs into the potentiality of music to incarnate trauma and pain.
The Flamenco Guitar of Yeraí Cortés was seen during the 2025 Hot Docs film festival.
