The Architectural Promenade and the Cinematic Window in El hombre de al lado

Abstract

While this filming location might offer the directors an explicit means for underlining the socioeconomic discrepancies between neighbors, it also adds a rich conceptual network through the architectural significance of the property and the connections it provokes between the arts of architecture and film. This chapter first incorporates Le Corbusier’s ideas on architecture and cinema, as well as the architect’s concept of the promenade, in their application to the representation of the Curutchet House in El hombre de al lado . The second part of the chapter focuses on the film’s construction of links between optics and architecture to compare the window with the camera lens and eye to underscore the role of vision—and the possibility of deception—in the understanding of the Other.