En Construccion: Film and Critique

The Barrio Chino is the visual center of José Luis Guerín’s 2000 film En Construcción (Resina 2008: 256). In the beginning of the movie, a man praises the squares of London, seemingly condemning the geographic layout of the Barrio Chino in the process. He describes the narrow streets of the Barrio Chino as “old fashioned” while praising the wide streets and blocks of London and other urban cities (Guerín 2000). Based on the film, it seems that construction happens quite often, but never fully has the intended effect of improving the district’s layout or even satisfying its residents. “Deconstruction” may even be a better descriptor than “construction” given the circumstances and the images that are portrayed. The haunting film follows the mass destruction of many people’s homes, as Resina explains that “Guerín’s tribute to a lost dwelling through an extended view of its deconstruction” (Resina 2008: 257). The film uses symbolism and varying camera angles to get certain feelings across to the viewer.

One of the methods used is coloring to depict time. For instance, when Guerín includes footage from the Barrio Chino, he uses monochrome footage that is reminiscent from the fifties to acknowledge the “historicity of the images and therewith their corruptibility” (Resina 2008: 260-61). Guerín uses many effects to establish the time period he would like the viewer to experience and well as show the viewer the passing of time and the changes that were occurring. He wants to portray what one would feel in living in the places he films throughout their lifetime. For instance, the scenes he shoots in the present have very vibrant colors almost to make them seem more real to the viewer. The film has a slow rhythm, almost like the passage of time in life, and the director goes from one color scheme to the next and back and forth almost like a cycle to show the repetitiveness of time and its slow passage. He wants to show how time has slowed down since the rapid industrialization of the 1980s and the transformation of the area into a tourist destination (Resina 2008: 260-61). Guerín also uses crane shots of the old smokestacks of the industrial era that is now forgotten to show that the memorials of that time are there but are no longer the way they used to be. He revisits this image of the turning clock above the Bilbao Vizcaya Bank. This is seen to show to the viewer that “barrio’s last hour has struck.”

Additionally, an important aspect of the film is sound. The film utilizes sound to draw attention to the physical aspects of construction. This is evident in the scene when the construction workers all gather to watch the uncovering of human remains. The sounds of scraping and brushing are emphasized to demonstrate to the audience the how physically tasking his work could be (Loxham 2006: 41). Both sound and images are heavily influential cinematic symbols in this film, and enable the viewer to achieve a feeling with the streets and buildings. Along with that intimacy, though, comes confinement. Resina writes about the film as being a maker of “ghosts,” something that can be interpreted as the district planner’s push for modernity (Resina 2008: 263). This in turn caused historic buildings to be pushed aside as relics or lost forever for the sake of innovation.

—Edited by Camille Kresz and Benjamin Fraser with text from Samuel Alvarado, Andrew Lee, Tricia Malcom and Ashley Weingartz