1955 | Spain | Experimental

Aguaespejo granadino (Water-Mirror of Granada)

  • 21 mins
  • Director | José Val del Omar
  • Writer | José Val del Omar

This film is currently not available.   

Experimental, cinematic symphony of Granada, José Val del Omar’s birthplace. As stated in the film, Jose Val del Omar presents a brief audiovisual essay of lyrical plastic art.

Aguaespejo granadino, also entitled La gran siguiriya, is a film in the form of an audiovisual symphony about the Andalusian city of Granada, featuring music composed by Manuel de Falla and the flamenco style known as cante jondo, with images of the fountains of the Alhambra and close-ups of the gypsies from Sacromonte. The application of the diaphonic system plays a vital role in the film. This device was patented by Val del Omar in 1944, several years before the consolidation of the stereo system: while the latter was based on the use of two lateral sources of sound, in the diaphonic system one source was placed behind the screen, to transmit the sound associated with the images, and the other was placed at the back of the room, to transmit the subjective sound of echoes and reflections. The spectator is thus enveloped in sound, at the central point where the two sources of audio meet, bump into each other and intersect with one another. For Val del Omar the realism of cinema was what justified the mystical attitude, precisely because cinema was a medium capable of recording the most ordinary actions. That is why he called his documentaries elementaries, in allusion to the elements of nature to which they alluded, but also because of his interest in poetics, as a means of looking de

Experimental cinematic art cinema poet
Playlists