Antonio Gaudi Reviews

Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi believed that "Everything comes out of the Great Book of Nature; anything created by human beings is already in there." The astonishing achievement of filmmaker Hiroshi Teshigahara is to expose us to the sources of Gaudi's inspiration and to root out the wonder behind his credo. Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as a "visual symphony," ANTONIO GAUDI lets us buzz inside the imagination of this bold artist whose fantastic buildings inspired abstract masters Picasso and Miro. Navigating his camera through a Barcelona alive with rhythm and color (highlighting a folk troupe performing dances from Gaudi's Catalonian homeland), Teshigahara finally focuses on three Gaudi-designed houses (1910-1918): Casa Rocamora, Casa Comalat, and Casa Batila. Buttressed by huge outside archways, the houses have the twisted look of fairy tale dwellings. After gliding over Casa Mila (1910), whose exterior is encrusted with striking wrought iron terraces, the mobile camera tours Gaudi's Catalonian countryside, dotted with Romanesque cathedrals whose spires and domes Gaudi translated into his own iconoclastic architectural language. As we examine the Palacia Guell (1886-1888), a narrator informs us of Senor Guell's life-long patronage of Gaudi on projects like the Colonia Guell, a village of affordable housing for factory workers, and Parque Guell, which exemplified Gaudi's dictum that architecture should be organic. Like Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, the Parque Guell's structures rise out of the natural rock and forest environment. Finally, the film examines the blueprints for the Temple of Expiation, the dream project left incomplete when Gaudi died in an accident on June 10, 1926. Because of various wars, the Temple wasn't finished until the 1950s. Working in synch with his glorious groundwork, Gaudi's successors incorporated his concept into a church that serves as his artistic legacy. Like an alchemist, Hiroshi Teshigahara magically distills the essence of Spain's greatest architect. Eschewing a linear approach, the exacting director suffuses Gaudi's work with his own oblique cinematic poetry. Circling along corridors, suspending itself at ceiling level, or sailing dangerously across high balustrades, Teshigahara's camera is an instrument of discovery for the audience. Teshigahara's B&W masterworks initially seem an odd match with Gaudi's primal rainbows, but both men share an unfettered imagination and an ability to filter the classical art of their forebears through their own sensibilities. Only after he has opened our eyes to the beauty of Gaudi's homeland and the basics of his style does Teshigahara provide historical perspective and biographical data. Our awareness is enriched because we have gleaned our knowledge from the architecture itself; it seems resonant with echoes of Gaudi's life. Another key to Teshigahara's success is the haunting score by Toru Takemitsu, which conjures up Gaudi's storybook grandeur. When Takemitsu layers classical music over his own eerie strains, he echoes Gaudi's incorporation of the traditional into his startling, new creations. Teshigahara ends on a note of continuum. Interviewing a participant from the Temple of Expiation project, we learn how the building was reconstructed from Gaudi's original model and enriched by his successors. The foundation Gaudi laid down for this next generation of artist-architects was one of genius.