This is arguably the most thought provoking and genuinely enlightening film about artistic creativity ever made. What distinguishes the movie is not merely the complete conjunction of form and content but the way in which Erice Allows himself sufficient time and space to reveal every little detail of life as it goes on around the act of painting. Between putting brush to canvas, Lopez chats with friends, curious fans, his wife, his dog and the Polish buliders at work on his house; and as he meditates on and struggles against the worsening weather, Erice contrasts the oasis calm of Lopez’s garden with the surrounding hub-bub of modern Madrid. Finaly, there is an extraordinary dream coda in which Erice explores the relationship between painting, cinema and nature, taking his mesmerising fim far beyond the realms of conventional documentary. Enjoy a movie that is funny, touching, unpretentious and wholly magisterial.