Don't miss stirring documentary Sagrada: The Mystery of Creation, which runs December 19 – January 1.

A perfect marriage of subject and documentarian, Antonio Gaudí reveals the architecture of the renowned Catalan modernist through the eyes of Japanese auteur Hiroshi Teshigahara. The latter’s affinity for palpable textures and unearthly vistas, so evident in his masterpiece Woman in the Dunes (1964), made him uniquely suited to explore the epochal architect’s legacy in Barcelona. Gaudí (1852-1926), whose elaborate designs and incorporation of natural forms yielded some of Europe’s most eye-popping and idiosyncratic buildings, culminated his career with the mammoth (and still unfinished) Sagrada Família cathedral, which caps the film with its startling majesty. Mostly eschewing voiceover narration and historical context, Teshigahara lets the structures speak for themselves, his camera lovingly lingering on the lines, curves, and surfaces of Gaudí’s incomparably imaginative designs.