If “¡Vivan las antipodes!” it was – in its own way – a celebration of life in distant parts of the globe, based on the realization of “Watercolor” (2018), Victor Kossakovsky began to chronicle the ongoing war between men and nature, conflicts that we are destined to lose. The Russian filmmaker, who “went to school” with Alexandre Sokurov, a decade ago stated that documentary cinema should avoid the (pamphleteer) message, but throughout his last three films he has gone completely in the opposite direction, often highlighting the unsustainable way of living for contemporary human beings.
Following water in its various states (solid, gaseous, liquid), “Watercolor” took us directly to the climate emergency we are experiencing. “Gunda”, which followed in 2020, continued this lineage through the story of a group of animals on a farm, raising the question of how the agri-food industry is largely responsible for the degradation of the planet. Years pass and the director hits the same button again, but this time they target architecture and the choice of construction materials, with cement and the consequent extraction of raw materials to create it, also representing unsustainable ways of living that humanity refuses to abandon.
Armed with stunning images of planet Earth, from Beirut to Ukraine (the filmmaker’s opinion on the subject is explicit), Kossakovsky once again criticizes environmental degradation, this time due to the temporary way in which everything is constructed, in particular buildings that are He expects them to last 50 or 60 years, as opposed to the great works of the masters of the past, who built buildings that have lasted for millennia. And to do this, the Russian focuses on a landscape project by Italian architect Michele De Lucchi, which is expected to remain for posterity. Kossakovsky uses the circle created by him to reflect on the rise and fall of civilizations, while issuing – in a deeply imagistic way – a new warning.
It is a work of impressive beauty that once again should make a small circuit in cinemas, but should invade the agenda of school plans.
