The film begins like a documentary film about winter sports, if a rather unusual one. But then it turns to the topic of the industrial production of aluminum. Using the examples of these surprisingly connected themes, it recalls important phases of 20th-century industrial history and raises questions about the relationship between industry and the state. "The film is a research project whose materialistic principle – creating evocative constellations by means of montage – is not at all coincidentally reminiscent of Walter Benjamin’s work. Beginning with the three thematic complexes of cinema, aluminum production, and winter sports, which all arose at about the same time, the filmmaker digs like an archaeologist through the strata of this 'mountain', which is symptomatic of the century. Using the silhouettes of the skiers plunging down the white slopes, he juxtaposes the traces of the military and industrial past with the present, which conceals these traces. The picture conveyed by the film is that man tames nature only in order to be able to plunge toward his ruin – straightaway and without braking." Emeric de Lastens
Production: L'Abominable, Paris
Sound, Editor: Nicolas Rey
Format: 16mm (shot on Super8 and 16mm), Color
Running time: 123 minutes
Language: French
