In Blood Wedding, the play by Garcia Lorca, a bride is swept away from her wedding by a former suitor whom she still loves. They are pursued by the groom, and what follows is a bloody duel, the blood wedding. Antonio Gades's flamenco-ballet version of the Lorca story maintains the strong Andalusian atmosphere while it distills the details of ethnic tradition and dramatic narrative into a modern ballet. Carlos Saura's film of the Gades ballet removes it even further from the original drama, but remains in a strange way true to both play and ballet. Saura begins shooting in the dressing room and in rehearsals and moves on to a full dress performance. Naomi Wise wrote in the Express, "It isn't a film-about-dance, but an exemplary dance film, in which film remains foremost."