Filmmaker Stephen Loye calls his documentary an ethnographic research. But it is more, comprising a lyrical re-examination of the shocking crash of a Germanwings airplane in the French Alps on March 24, 2015. Loye may bring new facts to light, but that seems to be the last thing on his mind.
Stephen Loye’s work on The Belly of the Mountain (Le ventre de la montagne) coincided with the experiments of sound anthropologist Patrick Romieu. Loye uses Romieu’s audio footage to create an experience that delivers more than a straightforward account of the events leading up to and after the dramatic event.
For those who don’t know about the ‘accident’, Loye brings us up to speed with a computer generated flight track of the Germanwings plane, co-piloted by Andreas Lubitz who took 149 people with him on what may have been a pre-planned suicide, flying the plane into a mountain.
We are shown an animation of what may have happened inside the cabin, with the pilot desperately trying to get re-enter the cockpit as the plane into the rocks.
What follows resembles, at times, a regular investigation, as Loye uses Ministry of the Interior footage showing people in white overalls searching for the black boxes and other evidence. He also uses excerpts of the press conference with officials of Germanwings, dodging questions about the mental state of co-pilot Andreas Lubitz.
But Loye also interviews people from the area, who talk about the terrain, creating a mythical aura around it. An official talks about how he had to sign off on all 149 death certificates, among them one of a baby. The interviewees remain faceless, their words accompanying peaceful images of the area, green pastures, clouds, views from a window, all contributing to the fairytale like ambience of the mountains.
In fact there are no faces at all, except for the ones in the news footage. If you catch one elsewhere, it is by accident, in a vase or a window, or when someone is adjusting the camera pointed towards the landscape. The soundscape of the film ties all of the diverse footage together, sometimes contradicting what you see and sometimes unexpectedly leaving an uncomfortable silence.
Loye more than once takes a meta view, stepping out of his documentary, questioning his ideas and talking to his collaborators about philosophical concerns within the film. It makes you feel you are watching the production of a documentary, or its research being conducted. Loye involves you in the process and takes you on his journey, not only into history but into the minds of the local participants and, crucially within another part of the story, that of Andreas Lubitz.
The director’s intriguing approach is to underplay sensational aspects of the story, as evidenced by his low-key revelation of new evidence about Lubitz, whose state of mind during the flight has remained much of a mystery. The filmmaker calls his friend on the phone and after a comical exchange of words he tells him he managed to find a letter Lubitz wrote to his doctor. “Shall I read it?” he asks, before revealing that the co-pilot was suffering from seriously declining eyesight and severe insomnia, undermining the general assumption that he was suicidal and implicitly questioning the role of the airline, who should have never let him fly in his condition.
The Belly of the Mountain successfully balances fact and opinion, although every now and again it crosses the line of unnecessary portentousness, with grand statements about death at the beginning and end. Nevertheless it is an intriguing document, one which at times feels like a guided meditation.
France, 2021, 77′
Director Stephen Loye
Cinematography Stephen Loye
Editing Véronique Aubouy, Stephen Loye
Producer Stephen Loye for Ammonit’Cinema, Elsa Minisini and Elisabeth Pawlowski for Baldanders Films
Music White Mountain
