La Pedrera in the Movies. The Unknown Man of Shandigor

Over the years, La Pedrera has served as a filming location for more than fifteen films, ranging from Josep Maria Argemís Gaudí (1960) to Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) and Maria Ripoll’s Rastros de Sándalo (2014), as well as Michelangelo Antonioni’s Professione: Reporter (1975), starring Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider, and José María Nunes’s Biotaxia (1968), among many others.

Further information about these films can be found at
http://pedreraeducacio.lapedrera.com/cast/index.htm, under the section “A Place of Fiction”.

We are certain that many other films have been shot at or feature La Pedrera without our knowledge. In this sense, thanks to Merli Marlowe, we are now able to discover first-hand a gem from the Swiss film archives: L’inconnu de Shandigor.

Directed in 1967 by Swiss filmmaker Jean-Louis Roy, L’inconnu de Shandigor is a parody of spy films, particularly those of the James Bond genre. In the director’s own words, it is a fantastic spy film, a tribute to the adventure movies of his youth, in which the world of the Cold War is evoked through a baroque and poetic vision of the various settings and characters. A lover of architecture, Roy hides in the film’s title an homage to Le Corbusier and Chandigarh, the city designed by the Swiss architect in India. Above all, however, it is Gaudí’s works, with their rounded and dreamlike forms, that help evoke a magical and exotic setting.

The half-mad atomic scientist Von Krantz has discovered a method to deactivate nuclear weapons: the Annulator. Von Krantz, an invalid, lives at home with his daughter Sylvaine and his albino assistant Yvan, whom he ruthlessly tyrannizes. The secret services of several foreign powers, along with other organizations such as “Les Chauves,” led by Serge Gainsbourg, and “Les Asiatiques du Soleil Noir d’Orient,” dispatch their agents to seize the plans of the Annulator. The events are captured on film through a home movie shot during a holiday in Shandigor (which, curiously, closely resembles Barcelona…).

The rooftop of La Pedrera is one of the locations for the reunion between Sylvaine, Von Krantz’s daughter, and her former lover Manuel. After accidentally discovering where she has hidden the plans for the Annulator, Sylvaine flees her father’s house and is captured by a group of bald agents, who drug her in order to interrogate her. In the midst of her delirium, Sylvaine repeats “Shandigor” and “Manuel.” The agents decide to take her to Shandigor and follow her, hoping she will lead them to the plans of the secret weapon. Sylvaine reunites with Manuel and they wander through a deserted Park Güell, the Tibidabo amusement park, and La Pedrera. They run across the rooftop while a bald agent watches them from between two chimneys. La Pedrera and its extravagant forms contribute, like many of the other chosen locations, to creating a deliberately cold and mysterious atmosphere. The neglect visible in the peeling stucco of the chimneys enhances the ghostly quality of the scene.

L’inconnu de Shandigor is an unusual work within Roy’s filmography that, thanks to the performance of Daniel Emilfork (Von Krantz) and the use of striking and unexpected set design, has become a cult film in Swiss cinema. The filmmaker exploits the pseudo-futuristic, baroque, and geometric forms of various settings and buildings, both in the Geneva region—with the Bains des Pâquis, Château El Masr, and La Gordanne—and in the city of Barcelona, especially through Gaudí’s works: Park Güell, the Sagrada Família, and La Pedrera.

Jean-Louis Roy began his career in 1954 as a cameraman for Swiss Television. Before becoming a director, he worked as a film editor. In 1970, he directed Blackout as a member of Groupe 5, a collective of five filmmakers working for the then emerging Swiss television. In 1972 he directed L’Indien des Acacias, followed by La Maison des souvenirs the following year, and Romands d’amour in 1984. He retired in 2006.

Technical details
Director: Jean-Louis Roy
Screenplay: Jean-Louis Roy, Gabriel Arout, and Pierre Koralnik
Cinematography: Roger Bimpage
Editing: Françoise Gentet
Producer: Gabriel Arout
Production: Frajea Films
Music: Alphonse Roy and Serge Gainsbourg
Cast: Marie-France Boyer (Sylvaine), Ben Carruthers (Manuel), Daniel Emilfork (Herbert Von Krantz), Jacques Dufilho (Schoskatovich), Serge Gainsbourg (leader of the bald men), Howard Vernon (Bobby Gun), Marcel Imhoff (Yvan), Jacqueline Danno (Esther), Marc Fayolle, Adrien Nicati, Serge Nicoloff, and Georges Wod (spies), Eric Brooke, Gabriel Arout, and Pierre Chan.

90 min. Black and white. Language: French.

The film was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 1967. Its commercial success was limited. In July 2016, a restored version was screened at the 70th Locarno International Film Festival, in the section “Rediscovering Swiss Cinema”.