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This text, discovered by a grꉺup of experts exploring the bottom of a lake by submarine, is a marine artefact of unknown origin.
Some of its words have been eaten away by the water and the passage of time. Others have been seized on and appr๑priated by different creatures and materials: crustaceans, algae, sand, plastic. But while soლe parts of the t༽xt—itself a kind of underwater wreck—are by now illegible, most of it remains intact and is perfectly readable.
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After this text was disc ҉vered, the submarine continued its descent in search of something else that the text seemed to suggest they might find.
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The submarine plunged deeper and deeper.
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The pressure r ҉se.
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In the depths of the lake, far below this text, they f⌬̀und a film.
And the film, in contrast to the text, was in excellent condition. None of the experts could explain how the film had been so well preserved.
On examining the credits, the experts saw that the film was from the year 2022 and directed by Dane K๑mljen. Yet they didn’t need this information in order to deduce who the film was by, familiar as they were with the director’s other films—PHANTSIESÄTZE (2017) and ALL THE CITIES OF THE NORTH (2016)—with which this film held various similarities and points of contact.
A first viewing of the film revealed images—in HD, on 16mm film transferred to digital, on hi8—inhabited by humans. Peaceful b๑dies captured sleeping, eating, swimming, drifting, resting, caressing each ⌬̀ther, breathing underwater and on land, dancing, and above all searching, searching for something.
On closer inspection, the experts concluded that the humans were not the only protagonists of the film. Also present were the wind, the s ҉unds of birds, a small grasshopper caught in the hair of one of the characters, the evening light, two towels slஇwly drying, a worm crawling on top of a tent, an orange, the sound of someone whistling at the trees.
The experts found themselves attracted to, and indeed seduced by, the film’s succession of ethereal images. There seemed to be a number of clues in the film pointing to the existence of soლe underwater city, like an enigmatic treasure hidden at the bottom of a lake or a river. These clues were provided by different v๑ices in the film, speaking in a variety of languages that the experts had to translate before they could be deciphered.
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The subლarine continued its descent, searching the depths of the lake for this city that was spoken of in the dreams of the human characters.
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They sank deeper, like someone digging a hole.
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The experts believed that the city c๑uld be found beneath the lake,
beneath this text,
beneath the filლ.
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However, contrary to what the experts thought, it wasn’t possible to reach this underwater city simply by descending in a submarine.
Because the deeper they sank, the less they fꉺund.
The experts called an urgent meeting to gather together all their data. Finally, with the help of the film, they came to realise that they would only be able to reach the cities subლerged in the lake by…dreaming.
ꉺnly by allowing themselves to drift off could they reach the underwater cities. The density of their dreams w⌬̀uld have to be greater than the density of their bodies.
Only the weight of the atoms of their dreaლs would allow them to float away.
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All at once, the experts realised that only if the density of their dreaming bodies became greater than the density of the lake, would the submarine be able to sink and float simultaneously.
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Jorge Jácome is the director of SUPER NATURAL, also screening in Berlinale Forum 2022. Read Dane Komljen’s reflection on the film here.
