Il buco

Ein Stein fällt in die Tiefe – gespannt horcht man auf seinen Aufschlag. So beginnt Höhlenforschung, eine Wissenschaft, die etwas Archaisches im Menschen berührt. Wenn Frammartino in semidokumentarischen Bildern die 1960er-Jahre-Expedition in den Abisso del Bifurto in Kalabrien nachstellt, kommt es ihm auf solche Effekte des Nachhallens an. In szenischen Tableaus ohne Dialog erzählt er von der Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeitigen: da die jungen Studenten, die mit Energie und Abenteuerlust die Tiefe erforschen, dort ein alter Hirte, der sie manchmal von oben beobachtet, während er seine Schafe hütet. Hier bilden sie einen ergreifenden Kreislauf des Lebens. (Barbara Schweizerhof)

While Italy is experiencing the economic boom of the 1960s, celebrated with architecture that projects into the sky, a mission in the Pollino Highlands of Calabria is exploring one of the deepest caves in the world. It is the Bifurto abyss, just under 700 meters deep.
IL BUCO descends into these secret cavities of the earth, tracing and caressing their outlines. The darkness of the mysterious, deep spaces is brought to light by a group of speleologists who redraw the contours in their mappings. On the surface, there is life: from the fields, the roofs, and the farmyards, the director captures the beauty of landscape and those who inhabit it, the grace of the changes in light that intertwine with the inevitable profundity with the work of the explorers.
Painterly sensitivity is one of Frammartino’s key traits, who celebrates the geometry of the universe through the shrewdness of his gaze and the patience of his camera. The film excavates the spiritual dimension of the cinematic gesture, which is inherent to work, life, or simple observation. In this long-awaited third feature, which made its debut at the Venice Film Festival, Frammartino offers an interpretation of history and our times, which reshapes the South as a generous and tenacious land, whose wealth is discreet but undeniable. (Eva Sangiorgi)

Michelangelo Frammartino: TRACCE (1995, K), L’OCCHIO E LO SPIRITO (1997, K), SCAPPA VALENTINA (2001, K), IL DONO (2003), LE QUATTRO VOLTE (2010), ALBERI (2013, K)