大象传媒

More a thumbnail than a full portrait, the well-named Sketches Of Frank Gehry pays fond (some would say fawning) tribute to the eponymous architect. It's helmed and hosted by director Sydney Pollack (making his first full-length documentary), whose long-standing friendship with his subject allows for intimate access but limited objectivity. Gushy but accessible, it plays like a middling South Bank Show special, although the scale of Gehry's work justifies a place on the big screen.

Aesthetically, it's a matter of taste: some will delight at the playful curves and mix 'n' match materials of Gehry's most famous constructions (like the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao or the Walt Disney Concert Hall), while others may feel they're outlandish follies that look as if they'd collapse in high wind. Either way, there's no doubt Gehry is a dyed-in-the-wool rule-breaker. So it disappoints that Pollack relies on unprovocative praise-bites from fellow architects and celeb fans like Bob Geldof and ex-Mouse House head Michael Eisner. Voices of dissent are rare and fleeting.

"PERSONAL INSIGHTS ARE KEPT TO A MINIMUM"

Meanwhile, the closest Pollack gets to criticism is when he gently counters Gehry's regret that he's not a brush-and-easel artist with a montage of painterly reflections on the buildings' surfaces. It's a disarming moment, as are informal scenes of director and architect sharing anxieties over the creative process. Pollack also peers into Gehry and his team's working methods (from paper-and-scissors brainstorming to computer modelling), but with personal insights kept to a minimum, the end result can't help seeming a little sketchy.

Sketches Of Frank Gehry is out in the UK on 29th June 2007.