In Catalan, Spanish, and German, with English subtitles. Rating unavailable.

The sense of time expanding and contracting dominates Sagrada: The Mystery of Creation, an in-depth look at the world’s most famous unfinished cathedral. It’s possible that La Sagrada Familia, undertaken by the wonderfully eccentric Antonio Gaudí in 1882, will be completed in some of our lifetimes. But few are taking bets on it.

Not a trained architect but an original thinker who managed to get others to accept organic concepts drawn from nature, Gaudí took over from the cathedral’s first planner, who wanted a typical neo-Gothic structure. Gaudí built several significant works in Barcelona, helping to make it the tourist destination the Spanish city is today. But he knew the Holy Family, which resembles a forest made of stone, wouldn’t be completed while he was alive. Indeed, he lived in the construction site until he was killed in a freak accident, at 73, and was buried there.

During the Spanish Civil War, all models and plans were destroyed, and work didn’t resume until 1977, after everyone was certain that Francisco Franco was still dead. So far, only eight of its 18 planned towers have been finished, and the project is now further complicated by the decision to run high-speed rail dangerously close to the building.

German filmmaker Stephen Haupt captured the construction through many interesting phases, and the 90-minute doc lightly sketches Gaudí’s life and dreams, now fleshed out by artisans who currently labour on it—including a Japanese sculptor who converted to Catholicism to get closer to the work, generations of architects and engineers in charge of the collaborative process, and several abstract artists who previously opposed its continuation.

This Mystery could have used fewer images of a waiflike spirit wandering through the naves and porticoes, and more still shots of the cathedral’s astounding details. Still, this is as close as most of us will get to seeing this much of the spectacularly timeless creation—at least for the frozen moment we call today.