Work in Progress

Fascinating semi-documentary traces the building of a new apartment block in a rundown corner of Barcelona. Guerín shot more than 100 hours of footage over 18 months - some partially staged for the camera - then whittled it down, to concentrate on a squatting couple (Rodríguez, Guzmán), a tramp (Atar), the workers and their foreman (López). Several sequences, including the discovery of a Roman cemetery, are still far too long. But, without any narration, the writer/director achieves startling moments of urban poetry and unexpected anthropological insight, as the future takes shape among the rubble of the past.