Antonio Gaudi

Directed and co-edited by Hiroshi Teshigahara, Antonio Gaudi is a documentary film of sorts about the famed artist and his works where Teshigahara serves as a tour guide to Gaudi’s great architecture including his unfinished masterpiece in the Sagrada Familia Cathedral. The result is an entrancing and evocative film from Hiroshi Teshigahara

The film is an exploration into the works of Antoni “Antonio” Gaudi (1852-1926) whose architecture is considered among the finest in the art form as many believe that the man was ahead of his time. While the film doesn’t exactly say anything much about Gaudi as an artist or a person, the film is more focused on his work in the buildings he created as well as his drawings and ideas he would create for Spain. What Hiroshi Teshigahara would do is create a visual poem where it would gaze and look into the many buildings and architecture Gaudi created as much of it is based in Barcelona. From the apartment buildings, parks, and houses in and around areas near Barcelona, Teshigahara and his cinematographers in Junichi Segawa, Yoshikazu Yanagida, and Ryu Segawa would shoot many of these locations where the camera would gaze very slowly to capture every attention to detail of these creations of Gaudi.

With co-editor Eiko Yoshida, Teshigahara would put in a few inserts of Gaudi’s drawings or events in Barcelona to take breaks between the different places he and his crew would look into. There’s also a couple of brief moments that involve dialogue as it both relates to the restoration of the Sagrada Familia Cathedral which serves as the film’s climax. Especially as the construction and restoration for this cathedral that is based on Gaudi’s model is shown the film where it is painstakingly slow but what had been completed and restored since the film’s release in 1984 showcases a sense of beauty. Especially in what it might turn out as it’s rumored to be completed in 2026 to 2028. Adding to the film’s unique visual tone and look is the music by Toru Takemitsu, with sound textures by Shinji Hori and Kurodo Mori, as it usage of ambient sounds in its percussions and strings play into the atmospheric look of Gaudi’s work with Hori and Mori adding some sound that is recorded on location in Barcelona that help play into its sound.

Antonio Gaudi is a phenomenal film from Hiroshi Teshigahara. It’s a film that doesn’t play by the rules of the documentary but rather be seen as a visual tour guide of sorts that takes a look into the work of Antoni Gaudi. In the end, Antonio Gaudi is a ravishing film from Hiroshi Teshigahara.

Hiroshi Teshigahara Files: Pitfall - Woman in the Dunes - The Face of Another - (The Man Without a Map) - (Summer Soldiers) - (Rikyu) - (Princess Goh)

© thevoid99 2016