ELS NOMS DE CRIST

Filmmaking as stations of the cross. Serra’s only “series” to date, in fourteen short episodes – one for each station of Christ’s martyr – was commissioned by the MACBA in Barcelona for an exhibition on the relationship between art and television. Shot in the museum turned into a studio, “adapted” from Fray Luis de León’s homonymous dialogue (1586) written during the Inquisition, and filled with works of art, extracts from films (from the late Hollywood Golden Age: Raoul Walsh, King Vidor, Cecil B. DeMille), theology (canonic or blasphemous), post-modern satire and poetical research, El noms de Christ narrates the misfortunes of a producer who is trying to finance a new Albert Serra film, and the misfortunes of its own form, which is trying to encompass everything – concepts, images, languages, adventures – until it falls victim to a plot and to delirium. A real television baroque feast, mystical and sacrilegious, the film is a prolific project that explores a more discreet yet ever-present side of Serra’s work: namely humour, or rather irony. (L.C.)