In ‘Pedro Cano – Travel Notebooks. The Foundations‘, Alfonso Burgos Risco brings to the main stage of cinema something we’ve seen very little in the past years: the art documentary. The story of Pedro Cano is not only entertaining but even full of wisdom. Without no doubt we can say that this kind of films can and will make you smarter if you dare to learn from them.
Pedro Cano, the artist, was born in a small village in Spain, and from a young age he began to paint. He is one of the most important Spanish contemporary artists, with an impressive portfolio. The movie ‘Pedro Cano – Travel Notebooks. The Foundations’ is not only a biography, but also a lecture about art and the philosophy of art. Even though his paintings are the main focus of this documentary, the biographic background can be easily spotted.
If you are looking for a movie that blows your mind with extreme stories and crazy edits, this is not the one for you. This movie is not that kind of entertaining. ‘Pedro Cano – Travel Notebooks. The Foundations’ is the movie that entertains your inner artistic feeling, that side of the heart that beats as the colours flow on the canvas. Pedro Cano’s lecture on art is comparable with Michel Foucault’s or Jacques Derrida’s lectures on postmodern philosophy. We can find the same pleasure in leaving something behind for the next generations.
Pedro Cano’s paintings could be interpreted from some very interesting perspectives, but it is quite much to do in a movie review, so we will stick to Alfonso Burgos Risco’s work for now. Risco did a very good job in filming a master teaching his students the principles of art. This is a road very few people took in the past, and from the bottom of our hearts we really insist on taking this road. Our society needs movies like this one, and we are eager to see this kind of ‘art about art’ insertions in our modern day junk-pop-kitsch world.
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