New documentary aims to show a ‘deeper’ Dalí

There are no shortage of films about Salvador Dalí but a new documentary aims to delve deeper into the life and personality of the great Catalan surrealist artist. 'Salvador Dalí, a la recerca de la immortalitat' (Salvador Dalí, in Search of Immortality) is a new documentary directed by David Pujol and produced by the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation.

The new film portrays “Dalí as an artist in all senses and not only in terms of painting, a Dalí who turns himself into a work of art and character in the mass media, a Dalí who is a thinking machine and who has a very curious and cultured mind, a much closer and more intimate Dalí,” according to Montse Aguer, head of Museus Dalí and co-scriptwriter of the film.

Meanwhile, director Pujol, who wrote the film script with Aguer, insists that "Dalí never said anything that was nonsense,” and that everything the artist said makes sense if given its proper context. In fact, Pujol says that one of the aims of the film is to provide this context so as to better understand the life and work of the great artist.

The film, which is to be screened in more than 15 cinema and theater venues in Catalonia on April 17, 19 and 20, will also be shown in more than 65 cinemas around Spain. Made by DocDoc Films, the documentary is an overview of the life and work of Dalí, and attempts to reveal the man and painter behind the outlandish character so beloved of the mass media.

Using newly recovered archive material, Aguer stresses that the film shows a more intimate Dalí and the motivations behind his creative drive. “Dalí has a continuous line of thought and obsessions that are repeated so that at the end of the documentary this media figure is seen in a different, deeper way,” she says, adding: “Everyone knows Salvador Dalí, but deep down we know very little.”

Meanwhile, for the director, Dalí was “a very sensitive person, who was extraordinarily cultured and who was a type of human library. He was a very honest artist and he put on canvas and on paper everything he lived and felt, the shadows and the light,” he concludes.