Asphalt
Romania
6’
- Synopsis
- Curatorial presentation
A former construction worker meticulously recounts the laborious process of paving roads. Shot on Super 8mm, the film reflects on the origins of the roads we travel every day. A vague memory of the hot days when a stretch turns into a vital artery while the air vibrates turbulently.
Watching Bucharest in one of Radu Jude’s films, J. Hoberman described it as a city “half built and half derelict—a semiotic jungle and a ruin waiting to happen.” As such, Bogdan Georgian Alexandru’s Asphalt looks at a very public and very common sight within our work-in-progress Bucharest, the activity of asphalters. Even though he’s apparently shooting on the sly and watching the workers from a window, the filmmaker is concerned with dignifying every gesture of their work, enhancing their aura with the lush lights and colors of the Super8. Over the images, the voice of a former asphalter tells about his life’s work, a story of many technical details that betrays both the anxiety about the passage of time and a boyish enthusiasm for what it was. (Călin Boto)
