Il buco — a tantalising, spectacular caving drama

You might sincerely call Il buco (The Hole) a tale of free-spirited youth in the 1960s — or a singular action movie which deserves a big screen no less than any blockbuster. It should also be said that the film is first and last a quasi-documentary made in high arthouse style, director Michelangelo Frammartino recounting the discovery of one of the world’s largest cave systems by young Italian spelunkers in 1961 Calabria. That real history is only spelt out in the final moments. The film beforehand is tantalising, oblique, a little frustrating, sometimes madly spectacular. And all but wordless.

Never soundless though. The hole itself soon fills with a murmur of noise: a clatter of ladders, the breath of exertion. Meanwhile, the nearby village is a riot of cowbells and the din of the small TV in the bar the locals gather around every night. Here they watch the opening of the Pirelli Tower in news from distant Milan: a sky-high landmark for the glamorous north. In the rustic south, the excitement is underground, even if Frammartino can play the lack of hubbub in the village as dust-dry comedy. Cattle blankly watch the adventurers arrive.

The lack of obvious drama might leave you restless. It also feels bracing to be trusted to get lost in the film anyway. The detail of caving comes without guidebook dialogue. No explanation is needed for why the young explorers drop flaming magazine pages into the abyss, as a rough guide to the depths below. (We see Sophia Loren on a torn-out scrap, technically making her the movie’s biggest star.) The scene is a marvel, the falling firelights a rapturous image that speaks of practical utility. But above ground, village life goes slowly on and a stray football is destined to end up in one place only. In the world of Il buco, there is transcendent beauty — and then a “whoops”.

★★★★☆

In UK cinemas from June 10