Victor Kossakovsky is the author of some ambitious and immersively sensory documentaries, including Aquarela from 2018, about the climate crisis, and Gunda from 2020, about the consciousness of animals. Now he has created this monolithic, almost wordless and vehement meditation on concrete and stone; the building materials which are so substantial and yet appear, in the many drone-shot sequences of wrecked and ruined buildings, to be also temporary and almost fragile – their durability revealing itself finally in the almost overwhelming problem of simply how to clear it all away, how to get rid of the smashed and useless rubble. The mysterious shots of stone being crushed or broken in quarries show a violence in the harvesting of stone being analogous to future destruction.
There are some powerful images here, of shattered buildings in Ukraine, ruined by war, and those in Turkey, destroyed by the 2023 earthquake; these are juxtaposed with the musings of Italian architect Michele de Lucchi, who is shown studying the ancient ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon and also creating for himself a stone circle in his garden, which he describes quaintly as a “magic circle”.
In a final “epilogue” sequence, De Lucchi talks with Kossakovsky about what he sees as the mystery of modern architecture’s disposability and obsolescence, putting up buildings that may not last more than 40 or 50 years, whereas the ancient world intended buildings to last for thousands of years. Kossakovsky also asks why we create ugly, boring buildings when we know how to create beautiful ones. Fair questions in spirit, although De Lucchi might point out that in fact many or most buildings of course stay up far longer than 40 or 50 years and that many buildings from the classical age are ruined or vanished. He might perhaps even ask why we create ugly and boring films when we “know” how to create beautiful ones.
These are important questions, but I found something a little unfocused and even slightly indulgent or redundant in the way the images are put together (accompanied by a clamorous musical score by Evgueni Galperine) without making it clear to the viewer what we are looking at and where. Yet the film is so striking, especially on the big screen, almost itself a kind of land art.
• Architecton is in UK and Irish cinemas from 10 January.
