IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 144

3. In this sense, the documentary “ clave
blen blen blen” filmed by Arístedes
Falcón Paradí for over four years one
must assume where arduous and
enriching, is a huge revelation that has
been affirmed by the enthusiastic
multitudes that have gone to see it at its
few public showings in the very city it
was filmed, New York. It reveals no
only the complex process of how this
music, rooted as it is in a different
climate, culture, and social way of being,
but also offers the essential keys to
understanding a phenomenon as
complex as the rumba. It explores its
musical dimensions but also reviews its
history, and social, ethnic, national,
racial, religious and other origins, too.
‘Knowledge’ and ‘confidence’ are key
words for understanding the success
Falcón has had delving into the dense
and elusive jungle of the rumba universe
in foreign lands. These words can be
reduced to just one: time. An amount of
time equal to an entire lifetime, which is
what Arístedes Falcón has needed to be
able to see both the forest and the trees.
He has had to see, more than understand
or try to explain, because one needs a
great deal of wisdom, which is like
saying a great deal of humility to realize,
as María Zambrano said, that “true
secrets do not allow themselves to be
revealed,” but instead allow themselves
to be examined and even captured via
successive intuitions. It helps, for
example, that the documentary’s
flexible, unstructured nature groups
together
all
the
aforementioned
dimensions and allows them to coexist
comfortably. It is drawn along by
offering-vignettes to t