Béton armé contre dame nature 1999

Directed by Dominik Lange

This film illustrates a recurring theme in the work of Dominik Lange: the opposition of nature and city. The film explores various different aesthetic options. Lange begins by filming a bare tree, magnifying it and giving it the plastic seductivity of a watercolour in movement. The shots of the tree, either gently caressed by the artist's camera or exploding in a multitude of trembling and scratched forms, alternate with a series of shots of depressing new public-housing tower blocks. Lang revitalizes these buildings by clustering them together and/or blurring their contours. At a certain point, a building site appears; we see the buildings under construction, with construction workers busy at their task. Were these shots filmed later, or did the film-maker choose to show them later? It doesn't really matter; the alchemical phenomenon which mutates vegetation (nature) into the depressing uniformity of tower blocks is conveyed with sensitivity.