I'm kind of surprised at the number of mostly negative reviews this film has generated. Of course this is nothing more than a ghost story with an essentially silly plot. (So was Hamlet.) That served as no impediment to the success of "Dona Flor and her Husbands", although in that case Sonya Braga's beauty was a big help. And it didn't stop "Ghost," a shameless ripoff, from being a huge hit either.

The performers here are admittedly overage for their parts. It's disgraceful that they couldn't look like Brad Depp or Angelina Roberts. I hid my eyes when their faces appeared on screen.

What gall the producers had, presenting these splendid artists/athletes in their middle years. I only say that in the certainty that I will never know the meaning of the word "wrinkle." And the sets! Revolting. Clearly a stylized stage setting. The chutzpah! Why couldn't they have made the movie in San Francisco or sunny Miami where everyone has a suntan? No play with so many bare bones as a background can possibly be any good, as "Waiting for Godot" and "Our Town" proved long ago.

Still I find myself enjoying the music and the dancing, even to the point of being swept up in it. A lot of people seem to think that enduring music began in Europe with Bach and ended here with Charles Ives. We don't hear a lot about De Falla, who is much better known in Hispanic America. "El Amor Brujo" contains what I think of, at least, as his most entrancing tunes. Some of them are kind of naughty. (I rather like that.) And I am thrilled when I see people with outstanding, almost unearthly psychomotor skills exercise them, whether on the football field or the dance floor. I understand that what we see here is not "pure" flamenco, whatever that adjective means, but there is a basic difference between, say, Sonny Rollin's or Gene Kelly's or Paul Taylor's approach to music, on the one hand, and that of a flamenco musician or dancer on the other. The former would be tickled pink to be able to play an instrument or move his body in a way that nobody ever had in the history of humankind. A traditional flamenco artist would be perfectly satisfied to play, sing, or dance exactly the way his grandfather had. The singing, yes, sometimes sounds like the wailing of a cat in heat. It's supposed to, I would guess. All that Moorish repression of female sexuality.

I once saw Sugar Ray Leonard at his peak, shadow boxing for a few minutes, and the grace and perfection of his movements gave me goose pimples. So do some of these performances. I wouldn't have missed them.