Sombra a Sombra is fully immersed in the ambience and attitude of Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo, transforming its Spanish locations by adopting the vision of its source texts. Cross-fades of Spanish landscapes, Catholic icons, shadow figures and abandoned buildings flow in a procession of images of quietude and absence, edited to musical cadences. The point of view traverses the image-field like a visitation, cast under the spell of Juan Downey's deeply engaged reading of Vallejo's revelatory poems. Writes Reeves: "This videotape is an elegy of remembrance and a meditation on the architecture of the abandoned. Taped from 1983 to 1987 in deserted villages and houses in the mountains of Spain, it explores that space in the human heart which is shaped by the departure of the people and things of this world."

Juan Downey