One of the deepest caves in the world, the Abyss of Bifurto in Calabria, and the group of speleologists that explored it 60 years ago. This is the story of The Hole, Michelangelo Frammartino’s third feature, eleven yers after The Four Times (Europa Cinemas Label in Cannes 2010). The idea of the movie comes from attending a speleologist camp «where I met Giulio Gecchele, more than 80 years old, that was part of that glorious expedition in 1961. I spent some time with him and I started thinking how interesting this counter-movement was in Italy at that time ». Frammartino means the movement of the «young man choosing to go underground and while everyone wanted to go north some decided to go South, a place they barely knew». Frammartino chose Calabria, the region his parents come from, as the main location of his movies since his very first feature, The Gift. «It’s the place I come from» the director says «helped me to find the key to my way of making movies and becoming my set. A land that has a very strong connection with nature and that treats her with respect and fear». Frammartino’s poetry «decentralizes human figure giving it a major balance with the landscape ». Giving up on dialogues and music even in this movie. Especially music, the director explains «seemed a too coercive element for the audience because of its strong evocative power. I wanted the audience to be more free to search deep in the movie and build its own path. I confess that I never think about dialogues and music while developing a project. There are masters that are incredibly good at it, but sometimes I feel like there is a mistrust in the strength of images. First teaching in speleology was trusting the tools when you descend the rope. I think we must trust more the tools we use to make movies». Talking about speleology, in The Hole, written by Frammartino and Giovanna Giuliani), the technical challenge was filming in a cave. «We actually descended Bifurto, we didn’t go at the very bottom that is 700 meters deep, but we arrived at 400, where there’s a little lake we needed for a scene. We descended on the rope and sometimes took three-four hours to get back. It’s been an adventure and almost a real expedition».
Scheda tecnica
Il Buco
Italy/France/Germany, 2021 Directed by Michelangelo Frammartino with Nicola Lanza, Antonio Lanza, Leonardo Larocca, Claudia Candusso, Mila Costi, Carlos Jose Crespo Lenght 1 h 33’
