One day, long before I knew I'd make a film about Ada Falcón
I went to watch a silent film to Anibal Ford's house.
It was him, friend and tango lover
who explained to me the different styles of the female singers.
He told me about Rosita Quiroga,
about Mercedes Simones,
about Libertad Lamarque,
about Tita Merello
about Amanda Ledesma.
I was touched by the way he talked about them.
If you don't like tango female singers
is because you haven't listened to Ada Falcón yet.
She was a diva.
At the end of the night he told me Ada's story.
She earned lots of money.
She had a Bugatti, a Mercedes Benz, she had it all.
Those ladies actually felt the lyrics they were singing.
Once, Eric Hobsbawn, the historian, said that...
Billy Holliday sang as if things had happened to her.
These ladies also sang as if things had happened to them.
That clue Anibal let fall turned into a track.
Some time later, the track grew meaningful when I found
a piece of paper that came in an Ada's CD.
It said that in the 30s,
while on top of fame, money and prestige...
Ada abandoned everything.
She sold her belongings and recluded in her house.
She only got out to pray to the Virgin.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR EYES HAVE DONE TO ME
This story means a lot to me.
To leave everything behind for a conviction.
It obssesses me.
To go against your time.
The spiritual crusade.
That's what links me to Ada's story.
There are many films that could be done about the lives of singers.
Ada Falcon's story is the only one that invades me.
The only one that intrigues me.
The only one that cames back time and again, and again.
This is a story that doesn't abandon me.
It's not me who doesn't abandon the story.
She doesn't look like Ada Falcón.
I wonder what does it mean that
the tango's summit happened between the 20s and 30s,
when it stopped being a sin
and became a synonim of glamour for the upper class
and of fun for the poor.
What does Buenos Aires tell us today?
What do these cabarets say?
These theatres?
These streets?
These radio stations?
How can I help talking about distance?
At 16 in a ball, Ada, shoulders covered with a Manila shawl,
sings "Bésame en la boca".
At 19 she records "Pobre Chica", "Risas de Cabaret" and "Odisea"
with the Osvaldo Fresedo orchestra.
Before she was 20, she'd already performed
in music halls and comedies at Hipodrome.
From there on, her public was only masculin.
This woman we see isn't Ada Falcon.
If we had any documentary footage from those times,
she'd certainly look like her.
What did they see?
Who can I ask?
Where can I find a witness of time passing by?
Oscar del Priore, a radio announcer and tango journalist,
told me he knew Ada.
We are gathered here to remember
one of the most important celebrities of tango,
who decided to retire a long time ago.
Estela Dos Santos, Bruno Cespi, Luis Tarantino are here.
So is Oscar Basil, the only living member
of the last Canaro's orchestra.
She started singing at quite a young age,
she was called "little Argentinean gem"
Enrique Delfino listened to her singing and took her to the Odeón.
He made her become a professional.
It was there where she met Canaro.
People say Ada Falcón was a diva
and the other female singers weren't.
Divas are made up.
She made herself up as a diva in the 30s.
Ada loved jewelry because she wanted to shine.
I think it was her way to introduce herself.
It was also a way to put some distance
between herself and the others.
She used to take two-hour hot baths
because of her own Hollywood diva delusion.
Afterwards she'd get into her car
and race back and forth to San Isidro
to dry her hair up with the wind.
I am tempted to do as art specialists do
when they scrap a painting off
to see if there is an original underneath.
To knock down buildings.
To look for the origins.
This one shows the centre of Ituzaingó,
both sides of the rail track, North and South.
Ituzaingó historian Rolando Goyaud
looks for the estancia "Los Paraísos" in some old maps.
I saw it here, I'm sure. Maybe in a magazine or on a board.
That's where Ada Falcón was born.
The estancia was close to the train station, wasn't it?
Yes, but it spread out at both sides.
The owner had properties in both sides.
It's a long strip.
The reconstruction of ruins. Pure archeology.
"Los Paraísos" was probably here.
The estancia "Los Paraísos" as it was,
doesn't it exist any longer?
No. It's been divided into lots.
Why none of these estancias exist now?
All Ituzaingo was divided into lots.
Nothing's left.
Substitution of imaginaries.
Buenos Aires is like Cronos, the God of Time
who ate his children up.
The idea comes back to me as a ball bouncing.
What vanishes away.
The Hipodrome Theatre,
at the South-East corner of Carlos Pellegrini y Corrientes.
This is where Ada Falcón started singing.
The Ocean Dancing.
The Roma Theatre.
The Casa Odeón, 2728 Cangallo road.
This is where she started recording with Canaro.
Her golden age.
The Porteño Theatre.
Radio Belgrano.
The Río de la Plata Studios, 518 Uruguay road.
"Idolos de la Radio" was shot in this place.
Her debut and farewell to cinema.
Dear radio listeners, as I've announced before,
you'll listen to the amateur singer nº 16...
I'm such a coward! I can't sing, I can't sing!
Ada never met her father.
He died in Europe short after she was born.
Her two sisters, Adhelma and Amanda,
who also belonged to show bussiness, had a different father.
In an interview, Ada said she wore a solitaire given by
the Maharaja of Kapurtala.
She said he was madly in love with her,
and wanted to kidnap her.
She said she had a bodyguard to protect her from him.
That she wore the solitaire anyway because it was beautiful.
José, why do you know this neighborhood?
More clues.
For family reasons.
A filmmaker friend of mine, José Martínex Suárex,
tells me he usually walked by Ada Falcón's house.
One of my sisters lived on this road, 20 meters away.
Ada Falcón lived at the corner.
The house didn't belong to her family.
It belonged to another family which I don't know.
The house looked very different then.
It was plastered and looked like a real gent's house.
- Film Museum. - May I speak with Eduardo Fa?
- Yes, hold on. - Thanks
- Hello... - Eduardo?
- Yes. - Sergio Wolf speaking.
- How are you? - Fine.
I was looking for a silent film called "El Festín de los Caranchos"
You'll find it only if you are a wizard.
It s a film directed by Luis Ramassotto.
To be honest, I've got no idea.
- Don't you have a copy of it? - No.
- A still? Nothing? - No.
- Rolls? - No.
I am looking for it because
it's the first film where Ada Falcón appeared.
I don't think these copies exist.
Consider that it's a film from... 1919?
Apparently, yes.
That's nitrate then, it'd be a miracle
if you found a copy.
Those films are practically destroyed.
How many films are there from that period?
You are lucky if you find 20.
Ada locks herself up for weeks in her house.
Only a few times she abandons her voluntary confinement.
Which of these two bells is the right one?
Hi. I'd like to speak with Mr Enrique Bouchard.
My name is Sergio Wolf.
Nice to meet you. How can I help you?
Eduardo Fa from the Film Museum gave me your phone number.
I'm looking for a film called "El festín de los Caranchos".
You know that 90 per cent of the Argentinean silent films are lost.
I don't think that film exists anymore.
I'm looking for it because
I am working on a documentary about Ada Falcón.
She apparently had a part in that film.
All I saw from it which drew my attention
it was an ad that appeared on the Excelsior Magazine.
I started looking for it,
and I talked with some people at the Film Museum.
Yes. Anyhow, if you need contacts,
I'm a researcher and I've worked in this subject for half a century.
As far as I am concerned, there's no such a film.
Thank you.
Anything I could do for you...
We II keep in touch then.
People say that Ada lived in a palace
that had marble columns and peach coloured taffeta walls.
That she had 5 white- gloved hands servants.
That she burnt French parfum up
to have the smell she wanted in the rooms.
We'd like to see the house as we have a photograph of the outside
but if the owners are not in...
No, it's impossible, sir.
Look! What a joy, it's the contract!
Tango historians repeat the same story.
Ada Falcón became famous because of her green eyes.
I've only got black and white photographs.
I will never know for sure.
I will never see those green eyes.
Ada started at Victor with the Osvaldo Fresedo's orchestra.
Most of her recordings took place at the Odeón with Francisco Canaro.
She didn't know those wouldn't be just recordings.
At the Odeón she became famous, she turned into a diva.
Apparently her relationship with Canaro
wasn't just professional.
They were more than just a conductor and a singer.
There was something else.
A world that creates its own mythology in a present time.
The world of tango.
The story of Ada and Canaro
has a significant place within the legends of tango.
Excuse me, Ada. I was looking for you.
Come, let me introduce you to my friends.
Sure.
The forbidden affair.
The powerful married man with the arrogant woman,
who tried to be different from the others.
Ada and Canaro's legend grows bigger.
Some time ago, all these issues were forbidden, unspeakable.
If you look up in old books, in biographies, they were not as bold
as TV shows and magazines are now.
These sentimental topics were a taboo.
They were only whispered about.
It's hard to find any information
about sentimental liasons from those times.
When Ada retired in 1942,
they said her retirement was because of Canaro.
Apparently because of that love
that couldn't be fullfilled as he was married.
Because he was a very powerful man,
Canaro had a very bad reputation.
Everyone gets passionate and talk about Canaro and Ada
as if the story was taking place right now.
He managed his singer's careers.
He managed Ada, also her sisters and her mother,
who'd been head of the family until Canaro came along.
I think Oscar disagrees.
Somebody needs to be on Canaro's side.
I defend him as a human being.
Also as a populariser of our music around the world.
I think some people have a distorted image of him as a person.
He sometimes shouted, but who doesn't shout in some situations?
That's far from being a bad person.
A couple's private life's different from the public one.
His most stable couple was a French girl.
If you read the letters, Canaro was always apologising
for the things this girl preached him about.
Because of the other affairs he had.
One day Ada arrived to the Odeón on her convertible.
Pirincho Canaro's wife waited until Ada got out
and started smashing up her car.
Ada, very calm, told Canaro:
"Pirincho, your mad wife's smashing up my car".
Canaro asked Ada what she had said. Ada replied:
"Go on, Pirincho will buy me a new one tomorrow".
For an unstable woman as she was,
that relationship must have been decisive.
For Canaro it wasn't.
He was strong and she was weak.
Canaro unintentionally destroyed her with that relationship.
Bassil knows but doesn't want to speak.
How can someone tell a story that resists to be told?
I don't want to talk about people's sentimental life.
Each one of us knows what to do with his love life.
You have to give us an opinion.
I think that every person knows what he does with his personal life.
It depends on your mood.
If you break up with someone, you feel sad.
Then you replace that person with somebody else.
We will listen to a song
recorded by Ada and Canaro,
the two people we're honouring tonight.
Legend goes that Canaro composes the waltz...
"I don't know what your eyes have done to me"...
bewitched by Ada's green eyes.
A love story, told in third person singular.
An encoded story.
A story that may be decoded only by...
those who know the enigma contained in it.
Ada records "I don't know what your eyes have done to me"...
as if it were about her.
But there's another story.
It is said that Gardel was fascinated by the version by Ada.
He'd take her to the riverside and ask: "Baby, sing for me..."
Sing, "I don't know what your eyes have done to me".
They say Canaro would go mad for jealousy...
and he'd spy on them, from his car.
Broken promises,
eluding versions, contradictory, as well.
The universe of versions includes all possible fiction.
Lines crisscross, and blot each other out.
Burning love may fade in thin air.
Versions.
That Canaro had an affair with Adelma, Ada's sister.
That Ada asked him to leave his wife...
and that he wouldn't, so as not to divide his fortune.
That Canaro flirted with all young new singers...
coming into the recording house.
In the '40s, when she retires,
All great singers of the '30s seem to disappear at once.
As to Ada, I was always amazed, for I never...
found any data on magazines of her times,
no information, not about the relationship, but about her.
This was rumored in the hallways of theaters.
What you do find is data on the small scandals by Ada.
"There will be ads" "She'll come out on radio".
"Opening night", "Appearing", "Singing today", "Disappears"...
In 1933, Estentor Radio.
In 1935, Splendid and Mayo Radios.
In 1938, El Mundo. In 1940, Argentina Radio.
And then...
nothing but silence.
I believe it was mostly out of spite...
because Canaro had found somebody else,
and had two daughters. Everyone knows about it.
And she might have felt displaced,
for Canaro was always after some lady or other.
What I cannot explain is the hatred...
Ada's hatred for Canaro.
It was terrible.
She used to call him "Bastard" or "That man". Never once his name.
Besides, it wasn't Canaro who left her, but the other way round.
And they say Canaro had sent out for her...
in order to have her back.
¿Did he send to Cordoba for her?
I don't know for sure, when he sent for her,
he was used to her walking out on him.
There are pieces missing in the puzzle.
One of the stories about Ada Falcón, tells that...
she was extremely shy and scared of audiences.
So much so that in Splendid, where she was singing,
and then in El Mundo, in 1938and later, in 1940...
she wouldn't allow anyone into the studio.
She wanted to be left alone, and according to a magazine,
at Splendid she wouldn't even want musicians to...
be playing in the same room.
They had to stand behind a curtain...
so that she could sing, feeling she was by herself.
She needed isolation, as if she were confessing.
As if that music, and more so, the lyrics...
had a special meaning to her.
Something expressing her own feelings.
Preserving youth, freexing time,
censoring beauty, keeping her voice to herself.
No one would see her or listen to her again.
I don't know what your eyes have done to me, but you won't see them again.
Magazine multiply rumors,
related to God,
to her relationship with Canaro. What was the answer?
In 1939 she stopped singing and nobody ever knew why.
Several radio stations announce her return,
but it is ephemeral, and she disappears once again.
Years before, as if foreseeing this,
the magazine "Sintonía" ridicules her mysticism...
and publishes a picture of her, dressed as a nun.
As if she were wishing to live in that way,
Ada Falcón sells everything she owns,
gradually getting rids of the remains of her splendor.
Mystery grows more and more.
They say the master copies of her recordings are lost.
They say she's a nun, living in a monastery.
No one ever saw her again, no photographs, nothing at all.
No one saw her eyes again. No one heard her sing again.
She is still alive, somewhere in Córdoba,
just like the secret of El Dorado,
everyone knows it is buried somewhere, but not its location.
Salsipuedes is the town in Córdoba, where Ada...
chose to live with her mother as they left Buenos Aires.
Salsipuedes, meaning "leave if you can".
The name itself, announces a maze of sorts.
It is as if Ada had chosen it for its name.
Now, I'm talking about the '70s...
and then Ada Falcón was a mystery.
People said she had become a nun.
Most people believed this. Everyone would say:
"No, she's a nun and she's in a convent".
They say that when she came to Salsipuedes in 1942...
she wanted to enter a convent, but they rejected her.
- Do you know about that? - There have been many versions...
about that. And they say...
that she then chose to lead a life similar...
to that in a convent.
That afternoon in the post office,
I saw a woman walk in, and I recognized her.
It was Ada, even though she hid her face...
behind these big sun-glasses...
and she'd covered her hair with a scarf.
Her clothes were different...
to those worn by the rest of the people.
She was dressed in a typical way, as people...
would dress in that town.
Dark-colored clothes, blue or black, long skirts.
She and her mother would dress in that way.
- Would they? - Yes, yes.
Not exactly like nuns, but...
- Almost so. - That's right.
She came up to the counter...
and asked the man behind it...
if there were any letters for her.
The employee replied with a joke,
There was nothing for her, and he said something...
she didn't like.
So she rebuked him, said he was disrespectful...
and that he'd go to Hell if he didn't learn respect.
This was the confirmation I needed: It was Ada,
I knew her, the way she would talk and quote...
Scriptural knowledge.
Her lifestyle was somewhat unusual for us townspeople...
we thought it wasn't normal.
People said she was wealthy,
but that she had chosen to live like she did,
apparently because she...
wanted to be like a nun, of sorts, say.
- She wasn't, though. - No, no...
then she left, and I approached the counter...
and ask: "Was this Ada Falcón?"
"Yes, she is" So then I said:
"I need to talk to her".
I turned around, but she was gone.
How could she have disappeared, faded?
So I missed the chance...
She'd been right there, and then she was gone.
I ran out, and looked around,
but she was nowhere to be seen. I couldn't see her.
I heard her sing very seldom.
She would sing at the back of her house,
or inside a room. You could hear her faintly.
But that was seldom.
Almost never before an audience.
- Did you go to her house? - Well, we'd walk by...
right by her house...
or, well... As she had left...
fifty years ago, and the town was so small,
there weren't so many houses, so one could...
hear her sing, even if you were nearby...
in a bar, a cafe across the street, perhaps it's that one...
We arrived, and she shows up at the pharmacy.
We talked and had a long conversation standing here.
So she told me about her life, and her sad conditions.
Said she lived on rent incomes, which were...
highly devaluated, and it was too little.
She had to support her mother as well.
Said they were poor.
She told me about her religious passion.
And said bad things about Canaro, many times.
- She said... - What did she say of Canaro?
That he was a bad person...
who deserved Hell, and...
that fire in Hell should...
make him pay back what evil he'd done here.
The house is large...
and quite modern for its times.
As to who...
They say Canaro bought it for her.
They said lots of things. So many things, you see.
Yes, rather out of town, out of what you might call...
the center of Salsipuedes.
They said they were afraid,
of living in a big house.
She would always wear sunglasses and...
the scarf on her head,
because she'd promised God some things...
this one among them, for her eyes and her hair were...
what men had loved most. So she wanted to hide them,
because she'd promised no man would ever see...
her eyes or hair again.
She walked in that direction, as if she'd cross the street,
I think she was going home.
And then, I saw two cars coming along the street, and said:
"Watch it!" "Never mind", she replied.
And she crossed the street. She then told me:
"God protects me. Nothing will happen to me".
She crossed the street. There was a cafe there, with a couple...
of tables on the sidewalk, so I invited her to join me...
because I wanted her to stay with me: "Let me invite you..."
but she answered: "I can't. Because among my promises to God...
I've promised never again
to sit next to a man in public".
It's as if Ada Falcón were the only thing that ever happened...
in this town.
The illegible, shaky handwriting.
Tilted to the left, with no punctuation...
just a long list of names and memories...
vague, present and past.
Letters, the slightest contact with the world,
letters as a residue of a genre, that of...
Iove letters.
Hello, good afternoon.
- Good afternoon. - Good afternoon.
May I see the Mother Superior?
We're looking for a woman we've been told we might find here.
- Are you? - A Sister.
San Antonio de Arredondo, that's a Benedictine convent.
- Who are you? - Journalists, from Buenos Aires.
- There are only women here. - This was a long time ago.
Perhaps one of the eldest sisters.
Please, wait here.
Sister Sylvia agrees to tell me what she knows.
She'd converted, along a process, in which...
she discovered God in her life.
- While in Salsipuedes. - No, while in Buenos Aires.
So she left the show business, and retired then, didn't she?
Well... it wore out... little by little.
She even gave her things away to the needy people.
Therefore, it is also possible that she entered the Franciscan Order...
for she lived according to St. Francis' tenets of spirituality.
And after that... There was also a process...
of illness, maybe sclerosis, that was some 18 or 19 years ago.
One day, she was walking around Villa Carlos Paz.
And suddenly, she said in a mysterious way, that...
she'll talk if I stop filming her.
The mayor brings her here, to the monastery...
and then to an old people's residence,
run by the Sisters of Saint Camil
That's in Molinari, close to Cosquín.
I don't think you'll be able to interview her.
For Mother Irene will have to give her permission.
You may go and ask.
It happens in a parallel world, with its own time.
Go towards La Falda,
and you'll find a sign...
on your left hand side, about 500 mts from here...
The sign reads: Atucha- Lavallol, that's a school.
- A school? - Yes.
But now it's become an old people's home.
The nuns of Saint Camil run it.
Sister Irene was in Molinari already...
when Ada arrived at the home in Atucha-Lavallol.
For she talks about the nuns of her time...
and says she's outshine them all, and that's why...
nobody liked her there.
Would they visit her?
No, they didn't.
In these 15 years, only once did they come,
they asked her to sing, but she never sang.
- Doesn't she sing in the convent? - Never.
- Not even when she was younger? - Never. Not even once.
She says: "I have given it all up, for God, I've left that behind me".
So I say: "Well, but one day..."
"I've given it up for God", she says.
"But the evil I've suffered at their hands..."
Mentioning Canaro is like mentioning the devil...
I don't know what happened, but she hates Canaro so much.
So I say: "Now, if you've given it all up, and...
you did so for God, that's enough, isn't it, Ada?
Why do you hate him? Why do you say you hate Canaro?
"What that evil one has done to me". But she won't tell what it is.
"What that evil one has done to me". She won't say why.
- Have you ever asked her? - No. Never.
Because she'll stop you even before you begin.
Sixty years later, she's out again.
Why remember? Is there any other?
- Can you recognize him? - Corsini.
Ignacio, he was so good.
Where did you find this?
- I was 19 then. - So pretty.
You can't tell by a photograph.
So pretty.
Beautiful! Let me see, are there more?
Whenever she finished singing she'd go to a church.
She can't hear me, I can't understand her.
Her last obstacle is her voice.
Nothing less than her voice.
Everything is shaky, even the tone of her voice.
I go for that voice, and I end up translating it.
Ada, do you remember the story of that waltz...
"I don't know what your eyes have done to me"?
Just like Canaro, I follow the key offered by those eyes.
She remembers. I don't know what your eyes have done to me...
for they kill me with love as they look at me.
It stinks.
Is it true the waltz was composed as a homage to you?
Yes! Of course!
So many. And the green eyes...
Have you read the magazine?
Look Ada.
Is that me?
With Olinda Bozán.
- Is that Olinda? - Yes.
- But Olinda's dead. - She is.
- Who's that? - Tito Luciardo.
Tito Luciardo.
Now she'll sing.
- And, who's that man? - Corsini.
Is that Corsini? Doesn't look like him.
Corsini was handsome. This one isn't.
Such beautiful eyes!
I give her a copy of "Radio Idols".
The place gets crowded.
And then, I never sang again.
Never again!
Oh, so many memories!
So many memories!
Why didn't you sing again?
Why would I sing as a Franciscan Sister?
I didn't sing again.
I promised God...
I'd be a Franciscan Sister until the day I died?
Ada, were you in love with Canaro?
No! Of course not!
I liked him. That's all.
But then... he went crazy...
Wouldn't talk again.
Poor man, I don't know.
It was a passion, worship, almost.
That one...
That's you, singing.
She doesn't want to hear so I have to stop it.
I can't cry. I'd like to cry.
Poor Ada!
- Who's this? - You!
Poor Canaro.
Poor "Pirincho".
And she mumbles, "Poor Canaro" and "Poor Ada", as if she were...
talking to herself, and as if it were the same thing.
That's not soft. My voice was so soft.
Here, where the ghosts of tango...
watch and wait for us to leave so that they can speak...
in the underground, there's Ada.
Two floors above us, Canaro, conveniently separated.
The only possible return to Buenos Aires,
what she would have chosen.
"Death is the only one that will bring me to you again"
But she had died, long before that.
Who was your true love, Ada?
My true love?
My true love...
I can't remember.