In the beginning the idea was to make something from nothing, in a neutral and unknown place. Collect images and sounds instead of producing them. The camera, the microphone and the mini-amplifier: tools that take away and then give back. We defined a rule: the sound shouldn't illustrate the image and the image shouldn't absorb the sound. Less than a hundred kilometres from Reykjavik we found Strokkur. For three days we saw and heard the internal dynamics of the crevice: the boiling water that spat out every seven minutes and the thermal shock, given the eighteen degrees below zero of the atmosphere.
Sound
Sound and image divorced deliberately—two rhythms, one volcanic breath.
Cinematography
Eighteen below zero looks impossibly beautiful. You're freezing just watching.
Director
João Salaviza
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Salaviza made this between narrative films as a deliberate palate cleanser—pure structuralist cinema disguised as nature documentary.
The eighteen-degree temperature wasn't exaggerated; crew nearly lost equipment to thermal shock when the geyser sprayed unexpected directions.
PT
