19/03/2021 - In her second feature, Marina Lameiro focuses not only on rock group Berri Txarrak during their farewell tour, but also, and especially, on their most die-hard fans

This writer didn’t previously know of the band Berri Txarrak, the stars of the second feature by Pamplona-born filmmaker Marina Lameiro, Dardara [+see also:
trailer
interview: Marina Lameiro
film profile], but after watching (and listening to) said movie, he was introduced to a music group bristling with spirit, emotion and powerful lyrics, as well as one that proves to inspire an almost messianic faith in their audience. On Monday 15 March, the documentary opened the 15^th edition of Punto de Vista – the Navarre International Documentary Film Festival, a gathering that the director took part in three years ago with her feature debut, Young & Beautiful [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile].

While on that occasion, Lameiro focused her gaze on a group of people close to her own milieu and took her title from a song by Lana del Rey, now she has split her attention between the aforementioned Berri Txarrak and a select group of their most ardent admirers, using a Basque word for the title. But… “What does ‘dardara’ mean?” non-Basque speakers will be wondering. The answer is “trembling”, “tremor” or “vibration”, and in this case, it also has a three-fold connotation: the music itself, which, after all, consists of vibrations; the quivering that the chords and notes elicit in the audience; and the tremors caused by giving up what you’ve been doing for the last 25 years – in this case, the decision to call a halt to going up on stage with the band.

The filmmaker opted to document this farewell tour, which was planned to be a very special affair, and after a suggestion from the band themselves, she agreed to pay tribute to their fans, showing the different stories that lay behind some of them. For example, in Dardara, we see how, whenever the group went on a tour of Germany, a certain German girl attended each and every one of their gigs: she was in the front row in different seven cities, without fail. That – along with her motivations, excitement and emotions – are captured and conveyed faithfully and sensitively by Lameiro and her camera.

In addition, we see a clutch of other admirers, ranging from a transsexual individual to a mother who explains to her very young child the meaning of the concepts that crop up in some of the tracks by her favourite group. Because if Dardara proves anything, it’s that songs can elicit all kinds of emotions, and they possess a magical power to shift the listener’s mood, no matter whether they understand the lyrics, as the people who appear in this feature assure us, time after time.

Dardara is an Arena Comunicación and Txalap.art production, in conjunction with Only in Dreams. Atera Films is in charge of distributing it. It is released in Spanish theatres on 18 or 19 March, depending on the situation in the different autonomous communities.

(Translated from Spanish)