A sensitive look at mysteries of Gaudi
The terms "documentary" and "biography" have very little to do with Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara's 1984 film about that fabled and enigmatic Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi. Having recently revisited Gaudi's work in Catalonia, I was struck by how sensitively the film tracks the master architect's work.
Teshigahara doesn't clutter Gaudi's profound and innovative visual language with an excess of words. This is a film to be looked at, not listened to. A terse sentence or two appears at the bottom of the screen every now and then, like labels accompanying artworks in museums. But with a couple of minor exceptions, the human voice has no place here; only an eerie, ethereal score accompanies camera work caressing architecture that seems to spring from the earth. For Gaudi, columns branched like trees, staircases spiraled like nautilus shells, walls were encrusted with foliage. He made stone appear to breathe.
Teshigahara could have set Gaudi's story in a circa-1900 context of architecture that, worldwide, was rebelling against Victorian oppressiveness. Instead, and wisely, he placed Gaudi in the context of Catalonia. The film begins with Barcelona's fountains gushing colored waters, its dark medieval alleyways, the spaciousness of La Rambla, the broad avenue where the city's population parades almost around the clock, and the Sardana, a circle dance with anyone who wants joining in.
The film also offers a capsule history of the art of Catalonia, starting with somber Romanesque apses painted with the martyrdoms of various saints. A nod is also made to celebrated modern artists of the region: Picasso, Miro, and Antoni Tapies.
Then it proceeds with lingering looks at Gaudi's principal projects. In the so-called "Block of Discord" on the Passeig de Gracia, his woozy Casa Battlo almost appears propped up by its more rectilinear neighbor, Josep Puig i Cadafalch's Casa Ametller. On the same street is Gaudi's "La Pedrera," the breathtaking apartment building that curves around the block like a giant sweeping ribbon, its balconies covered with tangled metal vines, its roof populated by chimneys and vents that resemble armored knights ready to do battle.
Gaudi's most loyal and boldest patron was Eusebi Guell i Bacigalupi. A textile magnate, Guell commissioned the architect not only to design a house where the gates look like dragonfly wings, but also the huge Parc Guell. Here, amid a forest of sculptural "trees" covered in irregularly shaped mosaics, are as many symbols of Catalonian patriotism as Gaudi and Guell could come up with. Both were fiercely proud of their heritage: After all, the craggy mountain of Montserrat, outside Barcelona, was said to be the home of the Holy Grail.
The very shape of Montserrat's peaks may have inspired the multiple spires of La Sagrada Familia. While related to Gothic cathedrals, there is nothing of the columnar figures of Gothic facades here: Gaudi's biblical characters are astonishingly naturalistic.
Gaudi died in a freak accident, leaving his great temple incomplete. A debate rages about attempts to finish it: The additions made after the architect's death are coarse in comparison with his own intricate designs. Teshigahara skirts the debate. When you visit the temple in person, you're forced to see the modern sections; Teshigahara gives you only the glory of Gaudi.
"Antonio Gaudi" screens at the Museum of Fine Arts on various dates through Dec. 2.
