Il Buco (2022)

Michelangelo Frammartino’s work is often silent and meditational; and Il Buco, his first main feature for twelve years, continues that trend of strong but silent works. Almost entirely without dialogue, Il Buco is inspired by a true story of the unmasking of a cave system in rural Calabria, as workers from the city of Milan travel to the village to map out the previously unexplored caverns and tunnels. These events took place in 1961, but apart from a visual of John F. Kennedy on the front cover of a magazine, the film could be set at anytime in the last sixty years or so. Despite Il Buco being entirely set in the small rural village (apart from an excellent opening stock footage shot of a New York window cleaner scaling a skyscraper) the cinematography provides sweeping footage of beautiful landscapes of the region, and this wide-open land is juxtaposed gloriously with the claustrophobic scenes inside the underground cave range as the cavers hollow away at stone to create openings they can wriggle through, reminding you at times of Neil Jordan’s The Descent (2005). Otherwise, Il Buco is the polar opposite of Jordan’s horror, it’s a film in which you’re absorbed by the landscape and the job of the cavers, and it’s a sensual and soothing ninety minutes of beautiful film making. 7.2/10