Unterwegs. Zum Kino von Albert Serra

Abstract

Summary: Marching is an essential element in the films of Catalan director Albert Serra. But, while Don Quichotte and Sancho cross the Mancha and the Three Magi walk through a global desert, their motion is often interrupted, postponed, disturbed. That is why, through Serra’s filmography, the shots become more and more like paintings and still lives. The suspense between motion and immobility in Serra’s cinema indicates something beyond the visible movement, the visible marching and the visible paths (and maybe the visible in general): another hidden motion of the characters, the images and the film, which is still “on the way” to motion – and thus to cinema itself. [Keywords: Albert Serra; Honor de cavalleria; El cant dels ocells; Història de la meva mort; death of cinema; autothanatography; still life; painting; fiction]