Spine Poem portrays the gestural agility of a culinary artisan in a close-up of the making of an improbable recipe: fish spine bone. The dissection of the animal is choreographed with the detailed precision of a ritual while a storm rages outside. In this piece of science fiction, the sublimation of an element is carried out through the mechanization of surgical gestures, luring us into the limits of human sophistication. The film’s sequences are interrupted by acidic sound cuts accompanying the syncopated structuralism of the fish spine bone.
Margarida Mendes, Press-release for Down in the Valley