Dead Slow Ahead

This intoxicating voyage of a freighter crossing the Atlantic is more like a -style science fiction movie than a documentary. Adrift and always in hypnotic motion, the vessel becomes a futuristic machine that seems to be swallowing up the people working on it. Surely this must be what a journey to the end of the world would be like – traveling aboard the last mechanical remnant, following pointless orders, going nowhere, but unstoppable. For 10 weeks, Spanish director Mauro Herce composed meticulously framed shots to capture the journey of the , the freighter that his camera transforms into a wandering space vehicle: the backlit cables, the ominous creeks as the cargo is unloaded, the ghostly clouds in sepia skies, the toxic green radar screen, the low-lit parties, and the thumps, grating and squeaking. When the ocean water seeps in and reaches the cargo of grain, it portends nothing less than the apocalypse.