Architecton

Rock your world with this mesmerising documentary about the increasingly impermanent building blocks of civilisation.

Humans are builders. We construct ‘landmarks’ of civilisation using soil and stone plundered from the Earth, believing we’ve improved on the natural world. But for whom – and for how long? Even as they crumble, ancient monuments shout their craving for eternity. Meanwhile, today’s architecture has lost sight of deep time: cheap construction methods endanger ecosystems, bombs flatten cityscapes and engineering surrenders to environmental disasters. Italian architect Michele de Lucchi argues that we can’t go on expressing ourselves minerally: “We need a new idea of beauty.”

These are big ideas, and Russian documentarian Victor Kossakovsky gives them space in this poetic essay, which rounds out his epic, elemental trilogy alongside ¡Vivan las Antipodas! (MIFF 2012) and Aquarela (MIFF 2019), and which screened in competition at the Berlinale. We don’t just watch Architecton – we are drawn eyeballs-first into the raw material of the world, staggered by its scale while contemplating our reliance on such finite substances. Deftly marshalling all of cinema’s sensory elements, Kossakovsky prompts us to ponder the way that human civilisation begins and ends in our planet’s very heart.

“Singularly imposing and sonorous … This is blatantly dazzling, epic-scale filmmaking that nonetheless invites viewers to consider the implications of our awe.” – Variety