Latcho Drom

Tony Gatlif's international hit film is a beautiful interplay of images and music in  an impressively-constructed musical travelogue that whips us through the migration of Gypsy music through historical time and geographical space.

It has no plot as such, nor cast or dialogue other than what appears in Gatlif's carefully composed montage which follows the migration of the Gypsies from India through Egypt, Turkey, Romania, Hungary, France, and Spain, presenting its broad strokes story through song and dance. Gatlif, an Algerian-born Romany who subsequently has successfully specialised in more conventional narrative films with flamenco and gypsy swing music featuring prominently, combines sound and image superbly to create an uplifting, albeit at times a tad sentimentalized, paean to the indominatibiliy of the human spirit.

 

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