Leonardo Da Vinci The Tragic Pursuit of Perfection (1953)

The English language version finds accomplished British actor Alan Badel guide us through a collection of some of the most beautiful and haunting images created by Da Vinci. From a close analysis of the man himself, to his more gruesome and violent imagery of war and brutality. His fascinating designs for weaponry striving to perfect huge great cannon, shrapnel, armoured tanks, catapults. His more pacifist nature is also illustrated with his meticulous attention to floral subjects - the detail is precise, intricate and entirely natural. The "Adoration of the Magi" uses geometry to conceive his depiction, but is unfinished - he couldn't find a way to satisfy his own demands. "The Last Supper", "Leda and the Swan", the "Lady with the Weasel" and, of course, "La Gioconda" amongst many that feature here. For me, anyway, it's his engineering and medical drawings that prove the most fascinating. Not just in their early depiction of technology and the human interior, but in the manner by which he used precision mathematics and anatomy to create something that must have looked almost heretical then, but now seems eminently sensible and almost architectural now. This documentary provides us with a vehicle to examine the vast range of works that this creative genius seemed able to conjure from nothing, or from the inspiration of the plants, the people and the structures surrounding him. His tortured, almost demonic, phase of grotesque abhorrences! His eyes seeing things that few others could before they had to watch many of his great works destroyed by the ravages of time as, finally, he journeys to the banks of the Loire to await his final companion. As a compendium of a single man's work, this is an enthralling cook's tour of his imagination and vitality and it really does make you marvel - and want to enjoy a more leisurely look at his works of art in greater depth, too.