The latest film from a list given to me of must-watch Spanish language movies recommended by my Spanish neighbours and like all the rest, so far, very enjoyable.

Now that I live in Spain, I have watched ladies here dancing the flamenco and frankly found it just a little boring with all its stamping and posturing, but here, as the backdrop to this Carlos Saura movie and with male dancers featuring just as prominently, it's something altogether different. It's vibrant, sexy and involving as a flamenco version of the famous Bizet tragic opera is staged by middle-aged director and choreographer, Antonio played by Antonio Gades. As the film begins he's still not found his leading lady, until dark-haired beauty Laura Del Sol turns up Vivien Leigh-style to win the part.

The ideas of life imitating art, backstage drama and staging a play within a play (or movie) aren't new but under Saura's assured, if stylised direction, the film tellingly uses extended dance sequences to carry the story, interspersed with naturalistic acting, particularly by the two leads. You don't even need to know much about the opera itself to guess that this one will end in tears.

Gades has an expressive face, with especially tired-looking eyes and a steely determined look when he's driving his troupe to their limits. Del Sol has an allure and air of wantoness which makes her right for the role in Gades' production but wrong as his lover. Sure enough, after sleeping with him and professing her devotion to him, we next see her having a fumble in her dressing-room with a fellow-dancer and not even a particularly attractive one at that.

Gades' obsession only grows as he realises she is too important to fire her but can't stop his obsessive, possessive feelings for her resulting in the dramatic climax, which is cleverly and effectively shot partly off-stage with the camera then panning across the rest of the completely disinterested company sat only yards away.

I'm no opera buff, but almost all of Bizet's original music here is familiar to me and while I may not fully appreciate the cultural significance of flamenco in Spain, its use here in unspokenly expressing emotion as well as a dance spectacle, I found very appealing and interesting.