Regular or Super -- Views on Mies van der Rohe (review)

This film has won an abundance of awards and mentions at various national and international film festivals: Best Photography, 2005 Rome Documentary Festival; 2005 Chicago International Documentary Festival; Critics Choice, Chicago Tribune (Nov. 2004); Best Canadian Film, 2004 International Festival of Films on Art (Montreal); Special Mention, Best Urban Documentary, 2004 Barcelona DocFest; 2004 Vancouver Film Festival.

Its modest subtitle—"Views on Mies van der Rohe"—accurately describes its content. The film depicts the views of architectural historians, architects (including Rem Koolhaas), academics, Mies van der Rohe's grandson, and people who live, work and use buildings he designed. There is no claim that these views are typical or representative in any way. Very little information is given about van der Rohe's life, and very few of his buildings are shown. The views vary considerably, with a few providing real insights into the work, while others—and especially those provided by Koolhaas in a rushed interview—are barely intelligible and leave the viewer to try to make some sense of what is said. A significant part of the film centers on a gas station van der Rohe designed near Montreal in Canada (hence the title of the film). In all, the film seems incomplete and to consist of whatever aspects of van der Rohe's work were readily available to the filmmakers. The overall view one forms of the film is that, while it is well made, the content was largely dictated by financial and other purely practical concerns at the time.

All low-budget films are subject to these constraints, but the challenge for the filmmaker is to turn them into advantages. This film is only partly successful in this regard. Its strengths lie in its pacing, music and camera work. As a film about one of the greatest architects of the 20th century, however, it does little more than acknowledge the well-known fact of his genius.