“Has life humbled you? » asks the painter Antonio López to the architect Óscar Tusquets. The presence and questions of the artist from La Manche are almost the only realistic note in a vitalist and festive documentary, God sees itwhich seeks to represent the unique Barcelona architect, painter, designer and writer. He understands. Its screenwriters and directors, Alex Gimerà and Guillem Ventura, enter the house of Tusquets and his family and some of his works – such as the Belvedere House or the Toledo station of the Naples metro. But yes, they sit at the table with him – and with his wife Eva Blanch. They travel with them to collect conversations with friends of public stature – from Vargas Llosa or Barceló to Antonio López himself – and end up going on a trip with their children, Luca and Valeria: “The columns of the Parthenon are like those of the house”.
Tusquets begins by remembering, with nostalgia, a time when architects “set to work and people trembled”. His documentary ends by celebrating Tusquets as the character he was: a person for whom architecture is more an education than a profession. And for whom knowledge, and the possibility of laughing, learning and, of course, dazzling, constitute a passion. More than the declarations of the famous people who surround him in this foray, the great success of a film which travels half the world is to construct, with his declarations and the fact of having researched them, Tusquets’ own personality: to display his faults or to make fun of them. Thus, alongside the “constant” celebrations: from the 80th birthday to the opening of an exhibition, “non-tortuous” doubts arise, the occasional lack of recognition or freedom, the problems of setting up an exhibition, the almost coquettish criticisms from his wife “pretending to be scandalized by raising her eyebrows”, or even his own excesses and aggressiveness: “Living is not that fun and growing old is painful”.
The documentary God sees it It is part of the extensive programming that the Dart Festival will screen in Barcelona, from December 10 to 14 at the Mooby Bosque cinema, at the Fundació Miró or at the MACBA auditorium. In this ninth edition, very contrasting architectural documentaries stand out in the programming. Thus, the perpetual celebration, which confuses the life and work of Tusquets, is opposed to the melancholy of Mirallesa feature film by María Mauti narrated in Catalan by Pep Ambrós. The film barely touches on the personality of the ill-fated architect (who died at the age of 45 in 2000 when he was the world’s most promising and avant-garde Spanish designer).
Sara Mesa, who wrote the screenplay with Mauti, chooses or manages to focus it on works such as the remarkable Igualada cemetery – rather than on the people who loved, surrounded and celebrated it. And this is where we verify the description of Miralles as eccentric, excessive, generous, large or omnivorous, in his absence. Miralles, who has become a legend, stays within the walls, columns and ruptures of his works when it comes to approaching the character.
Two veterans of arch-cinema, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine, are also on display in this edition of DART where we see them from the legendary Life in the Koolhas household ―the difficulties of cleaning the house that the Dutch architect built in Bordeaux in the mouth of his cleaner― until Infinite happiness: 21 days in building 8 designed by Bjarke Engels.
Also from this couple of filmmakers based in Bordeaux, the documentary Tokyo Tower, Filmed almost entirely in Ryüe Nishizawa’s Alpha Romeo, it’s another of the festival’s highlights. Getting into the Japanese’s car – after waiting for an appointment for a decade during which the filmmakers saw how MoMA acquired their entire filmography – Kazuyo Sejima’s partner at the Sanaa studio is represented not only by what he projects but by what he expresses. Who would take strangers to see a highway in their city?
Wearing a rose-print shirt on a rainy day, Nishizawa drives his car through gray Tokyo. He stops by his partner and ex-partner Sejima and introduces himself with all the naturalness in the world. All. Sejima explains where he takes a nap – even though he has an appointment next door – and Nishizawa compares the youth of the Japanese to the maturity of Europeans. Architecture too. “We have natural diversity, but no human diversity,” he emphasizes.
Electric, oceanic, he says to describe the architecture of Southeast Asia in the face of European and Indian brutality and force. “We are the verb, they are the noun. The Japanese love the new. That’s why we are young and the Europeans are mature. We love the new. The new seems better to us. And that defines a way of being in the world.”
Does he also like new things? Not so much. His car is old: “it’s not a machine, it’s something organic,” he says. For him, number one is Le Corbusier. “He knew how to construct a sum. Add to what existed. Look for the new in the old.” This is how Nishizawa introduces himself, speaking awkwardly in English. Make us think, not with their buildings. With his appearance.
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