Guernica

Before Alain Resnais acquired international renown as a self-willed maker of feature films he made himself known as an important talent in the area of the documentary. In the period 1948-1950 he made a series of short films all having art as their subject. The themes of past and reminiscence that were to characterize his oeuvre can already be noticed in these early works. is not a film about the painter Picasso. Rather, utilizing Picasso's painting and many other paintings and sculptures by this artist, Resnais tries to give his own view of the Spanish Civil War. The penetrating and charged editing, accompanied by Paul Eluard's poem, makes into a macabre, but beautiful document.