God Is Time; The Devil Rules over Space: Theological Reflections on Val Del Omar’s Recrudescence of Berruguete in Fire in Castile

Abstract

This article explores José Val del Omar’s religious thought in relation to his Fire in Castile, a 1960 experimental film that sets Spanish Renaissance sculptures in motion by use of pulsating lights, projected patterns, and other striking audiovisual effects. Val del Omar sought to provoke a new and technological mystical encounter: Fire in Castile displaces the viewers’ physical space to create a transcendental and sacred opening, in turn activating the affective role of the sculptures. This essay seeks to contextualize the film in relation to a core theological notion in Val del Omar’s thought, the interlacing of God and time: “God is Time,” he wrote, “the devil rules over space.” For Val del Omar, this is a tragic situation in which God is waiting for us in the entrails of life, which in turn demands a visceral disruption of our spatiotemporal and existential assumptions.