COUNTRY
Spain
YEAR1953
DURATION65 min
SYNOPSIS The
Elemental Triptych of Spain is the final cinematic project by José Val del Omar, conceived as a trilogy dedicated to three “elementals”:
Aguaespejo granadino (1953–1955),
Fuego en Castilla (1958–1960), and y
Acariño galaico (1961, 1981–82, 1995), the last film he left unfinished and which was completed after his death, following his notes, by the artist Javier Codesal.
While the transparency of water and the landscapes of Granada form the guiding thread of the first film, the second was shot during Holy Week in Castile and at the Museum of Sculpture in Valladolid, and its soundtrack features the tapping of fingers and fingernails by the dancer Vicente Escudero. Air was to be the central axis of the third documentary, filmed in Galicia, but once on location, the filmmaker decided instead to be guided by the shapes that clay took in that land.
In the words of Gonzalo Sáenz de Buruaga, “
Val del Omar imagined several possible orders and durations for the three components, or vertices, of the Elemental Triptych of Spain. His preferred option was the reverse of the chronological order, following a diagonal that crosses Spain: it enters through Galicia’s Finisterre, burns in the fire of Castile, and reaches the endless expanse of Granada’s water.”
This screening is one of the side activities of the exhibition
Val del Omar. The PLAT Laboratory, which can be visited in Space 3 of MUCAC La Coracha.
The laboratory is owned by the Museo Reina Sofía Foundation – MNCARS, Madrid.
Indefinite loan from the Museo Reina Sofía Foundation, 2021
(Donation by Gonzalo Sáenz de Buruaga)
Tríptico elemental de España is courtesy of the Val del Omar Archive.
José Val del Omar
Granada 1904 – Madrid 1982. A creator of artistic and technological talent, a believer in cinema and enlightened by new horizons, which he formulated through the acronym PLAT. He was a contemporary and companion of Lorca, Cernuda, Zambrano, and other figures of the
Silver Age cut short by the Civil War.
FILMOGRAPHY
Película familiar (feature film
,1933-1939),
Vibración de Granada (feature film, 1935),
Fiestas cristianas/Fiestas profanas (feature film, 1934-1935),
Estampas, (feature film, 1932),
En un rincón de Andalucía, (feature film,1925)
