Untertage (2004)

• 75%
• 2004

SOUTERRAINE is Jisca Rickels s already twice-awarded film graduation. It is a beautiful depiction of one day in the life of the miners dans the Lohberg-Osterfeld coal mine Germany. Dans little carts, men descend into the subterranean corridors. Beside à arrow on a wall is written ‘l'Enfer’ (to hell). Deeper and deeper, the camera penetrates the interior of the earth, where darkness reigns et strange sounds of people and machines are distorted into a frightening cacophony. At the end of the day, the miners come back up, towards the daylight. There they change and rinse the dust from their pores. Because the explosion hazard dans la mine made it impossible to shoot with modern electronic equipment, à old 16mm spring-driven Bolex camera and old Nagra reel-to-reel tape recorder were used. This gives the métrage a coarse-grained, impressionniste quality.