MEXICO.- Cantinflas, the beloved Mexican comedian –– the so called Charlie Chaplin of Mexico –- will once again come to life in a new feature film that is set to hit theatres soon. But such a beloved story would be incomplete without a great soundtrack and Aleks Syntek is just the person to musicalize what is bound to be a great film. Syntek sat down with SanDiegoRed.com to chat about his role in the upcoming film.

For Syntek, Cantinflas is a personality near and dear to his heart, as his own grandfather was a member of a team of bullfighters that worked with Cantinflas in a famous feature where he fought against the bulls called El Bolero de Raquel. He also had a chance to meet the personality, whose real name was Mario Moreno, at the age of twelve and remembers him as a very nice and noble person.

"I was first invited to watch the film about six months ago, just a short clip, but I fell in love with the film, the style, the acting, and the storyline, as well as the fact that I know the director and admire him; everything was representative of the best of Mexican filmmaking with great potential of really speaking to the audience," said Sytek.

Syntek was originally interested musicalizing the entire film, but timing complicated matters as we was also recording his new album Romantico Desliz and celebrating his 25 year recording anniversary. So, he instead committed to writing the Cantinflas theme song, called "Riete de amor hasta que mueras" which will also be released in an English version titled "The Comedy of Love".

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Aleks Syntek is no stranger to soundtracks, as he has previously collaborated for Spanish versions of the movies "Robots", "Toy Story 3", and Mexican film "Sex, Shame, and Tears", the last film alone required more than four months of recording . "The producers originally wanted updated covers and invited Enrique Bunbury and La Santa Cecilia to sing classic songs of the era. I asked them to let me sing a cover and instead wrote an original song to try to trick both them and the audience into thinking it was a cover, maybe of an Agustin Lara, song, or Consuelo Velazquez song, or some other artist of the time…. I wanted to create a song that was classic in its language, lyrics, harmony, and melody, and I am so happy with the result and with the producers who decided to make it the title song of the movie."

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This week, a musical video will be recorded and will be played in movie theatres as a preview before the movie's release. Aleks Syntek holds Cantinflas in the highest regards, an actor of unequaled talend, and indicated that he is so excited to be part of this project and be able to leave an impression beyond just singing a song.

He added that he is so happy that this movie is coming to theatres and will reach a latino audience as he thinks that it is hard to commemorate artist of the likes of Cantinflas. "Things have changed considerably these days, and we know that the media pushes fake articles and gossip, or negative things about artists, and this has caused the public to dislike us, or to not respect us despite whatever the artist has accomplished... and this era was so different, artists were almost untouchable."

Before ending the interview, Aleks Syntek asked that we make sure to stay until the end of the credits when we went to watch the movie, because the complete song will be played toward the end of the roll. While the song is a Cantinflas standard, the soundtrack includes other very talented artists, original songs, and covers, including performances by Enrique Bunbury, Pate de Fua, Denisse Gutierrez of Hello Seahorse, La Santa Cecilia, and original songs by Roque Bolaños Lopez.

Cantinflas will hit theatres August 29, 2014 in United States and Mexico.

VIDEO : Trailer of "Cantinflas"

Brenda.Colon@sandiegored.com

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