![poe the polymath poe the polymath](https://i.imgur.com/EMvphqv.jpg)
It’s a film not dissimilar to Portabella’s “Silence…” in that it contemplates great art, in this case architecture, by way of documentary footage, imagined scenes and surreal juxtapositions.
![poe the polymath poe the polymath](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E_Q9mxUVQAEGUZY.png)
The film will have its US debut in May, at the Chicago incarnation of the Architecure and Design Film Festival (which will also show “How Much Does Building Weigh, Mr Foster?”, reviewed last month). In March, the main prize at the ArtFifa arts film festival in Montreal went to Peter Krüger’s “Antwerp Central Station”.
#POE THE POLYMATH FULL#
A wind-instrument playing truck driver, an underground train full of cellists, a self-propelled player piano, the Bach family at home, the unproven story that Mendelssohn discovered the score for Bach’s “St Matthew Passion” wrapped around meat he had bought from the market and a wig-wearing tour guide all interpret the composer’s work in support of the assumed thesis that, for Portabella, what came before was not really proper music at all. Bach’s music, that is both accessible and fascinating while remaining distinctly in the director’s non-conventional canon. If all that seems like a mental workout too far, then among the other films in the season is 2007’s “The Silence Before Bach”, a part-documentary, part-experimental, part-dramatised exploration of J.S. “Miró Tapis” and “Miró La Forja”, both 1974, follow the production of large-scale works, the former featuring a tapestry that would be destroyed in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. “Miró L’Altre”, also 1969, sees the painter creating an external mural that is later removed by cleaning ladies, to an increasingly shrill, but not entirely unappealing, sung soundtrack. “Aidez L’Espagne”, 1969, collages documentary scenes from the Spanish Civil War with work from an exhibition where Miró tried to distance himself from the government. The short films about Joan Miró are a little less rigorous but still demand that the viewer pay attention.
![poe the polymath poe the polymath](https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4211982207_10.jpg)
The presumption of the film’s critique of the Franco government is reinforced by the insertion of a sequence from a pro-Franco melodrama. Lee returns and sings to an empty opera house then reads from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. Spanish film-makers speak directly to camera about revolutionary politics and censorship. Lee walks the streets of Barcelona, witnessing a (presumably political) kidnapping. While the Dracula myth could be directly interpreted as a critique of the Spanish regime (Portabella had his passport removed after “Viridiana”, and became a senator on the restoration of democracy in 1977), “Umbracle” is highly experimental. “Umbracle”, shot simultaneously and also featuring Lee, is a film that is far harder to fathom at face value. Portabella films rehearsals, behind-the-scenes preparation and the actors out of role, seemingly disjointed but with the whole producing a far more unnerving experience than Franco’s main attraction. The film is also in black and white, in contrast to Franco’s Grand Guignol colour scheme. Portabella’s take is notionally a documentary, but has little sound and what there is rarely directly relates to what is on screen. “Cuadecuc…” was filmed while Lee and the other cast members were making “Count Dracula”, an over-the-top gothic horror directed by Jesus Franco, in a similar vein to Lee’s previous outings for Hammer films. The companion pieces “Umbracle” and “Cuadecuc-Vampir”, 1970, both feature the British actor Christopher Lee, albeit in strikingly different guises. Portabella’s own directing career produced little as directly accessible as his friend Buñuel. Portabella first came to public attention as the producer of Luis Buñuel’s “Viridiana”, about a young nun’s fall from grace, which despite winning honours at the Cannes film festival in 1961, scandalised Franco’s government and was subsequently banned. Ostensibly timed to coincide with the current Miró show (until 11 September)-this season includes a number of collaborative shorts-it’s also a rare chance to see a wider range of the films made by this almost impossible to categorise artist. Tate Modern has programmed a season of films by the polymath Catalan film-maker, producer and activist Pere Portabella (15 May-31 July).