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Vibración de Granada / Vibration of Granada
1935 - 16mm, B&W, silent, 20:22 min.
This is clearly one of the most personal films by the young Val del Omar, on the fringes of his work for the Misiones Pedagógicas, although he probably took advantage of the technical resources the Misiones placed at his disposal. In many respects it prefigures his subsequent creative work, especially Aguaespejo granadino, completed twenty years later, and many of the images and motives that continued to fascinate him until his death.
This is a short film that, although a documentary in appearance, has very little to do with the generic conventions of that form. It would seem, then, that what we have here is the embryo of what he was subsequently to call the ''elementary'': an abstract or lyrical modality in the perception and exposition of the real.
The film opens with a succession of views of the monumental complex of the Alhambra. Moving through the gardens and the architecture with its coffered ceilings, the camera repeatedly lingers over the fountains and the ripples of the water; the pools, with their fish and water lilies; the trembling inverted reflections created by the ceaseless play of light on water.
After this preamble, the camera descends from the ''fortress, palace, paradise'' of the Alhambra to the city below: a city that ''forgot water'' and is associated with the wrinkled hide of an old and decrepit mourner. From this point on the images are not linked together in a linear narrative or descriptive sequence but atomized in a mosaic of impressions, metaphors – sometimes supported or elucidated by occasional captions – and recurring strophic motives.
In the filmmaker's exploration of the city of his birth, his feelings seem to alternate between sadness and tenderness, and this is especially true of the interspersed portraits of the people of Granada. These portraits – which have features in common with those in Aguaespejo granadino – linger over the ''blind creatures'' (here drowsing) and the wide-awake expressions of the children, the faraway look of the beggars and various traditional trades and craft occupations.
According to a note on the film can, Val del Omar intended the film to be projected through a green filter to give a uniform tone to the images. It was also to be accompanied by gramophone records, although the details of these are not known. [EB]
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