La via del petrolio (1967–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Le origini - full transcript

Year 1344

A calendar 626 years behind ours.

Surface area of the country:
1,621.860 square kilometres.

Constitution: monarchy.

The children are the future.

The country's name: Iran.

Tehran.
Tabriz, Isfahan, Mashhad,

Abadan, Shiraz, Qom, Ahvaz.

Persepolis... the tomb of Darius.

The tomb of Cyrus.

The thousand and one nights.
Oil.



Persia,

in sixth place on the world list
of oil production.

This film is dedicated
to Persian children.

On the edge of the desert,

flares are shot
to ignite the gas

that separates from
the newly extracted oil.

THE OIL ROUTE

FIRST EPISODE
THE ORIGINS

Men and animals
are not surprised by the fire.

It is a continuation
of the dialogue with fire

that the Persians have always had.

The shepherd and his flock
watch the flames calmly,

with a sense
of the familiar and sacred.

Around the 6th century BC,
when Zarathustra spoke,



there were already
many fire temples.

Zarathustra named it
the supreme god,

creator of the world and of light.

Today, oil is not a source
of religion, but of finance.

All the might that Asia could muster
went forth.

Asia, an impetuous shepherd,

drove a superhuman flock of men
over land and sea.

When "the flower of Asia",
as Aeschylus recalls,

did not return from the battles
of Salamina and Platea,

it heralded the era of the Greeks
and the decline of Persia,

the archetypal earthly empire.

Only now, aeons later,

has a new force emerged
in the Iranian valleys.

But this time it is nature's energy
that has surfaced

from a subterranean empire.

It is the age of oil,

the endogenous force that is again
pushing Persia into the arena of war.

Here are the condemned
beaches and mountains.

Here is the monumental skeleton
of Persia,

buried in the aeons,
with the Persians of Aeschylus.

This is where Asia begins.

One senses the same sun
also beats down on India's markets.

The Persians were vanquished
by Alexander, Muslims, Mongols...

"Such are the warriors, the flower
of Persian land who have departed.

Amistres and Artaphrenes,
Megabates and Astaspes

and noble Imaeus,
skilled with the bow."

In the Persian gulf,
oil wells suddenly appear.

They extract oil from a vast
undersea field.

A network of pipes links them all
to a fixed platform,

the product's
initial collection point.

From here, the crude oil is
piped undersea

to the depot in Bargan Shar.

When I went home, my son asked:
"Who's that man?"

My wife answered:
"It's daddy".

"But daddy's the one on the photo,
not that man...

I'm going to tell daddy
another man came home."

These separations from the family...

because as you can see,
I have two sons...

who I see grow up
in fits and starts.

I won't describe my feelings
when I reached Piacenza,

which is near my hometown.

Just think, I was in the desert
for eight months,

always seeing yellow:
yellow sand, full stop!

Seeing all that green was
a shock I didn't expect.

I got home...

my daughter ran off
as soon as she saw me.

It took a whole week
for her to accept me.

The heart of the Oil Depot

is the three immense tanks
that hold the oil

extracted from the wells at sea.

Each one can hold
50,000 tons of product.

But three tanks are no longer enough.

They are now building a fourth.

Between hydrocarbons
and endless trading in the bazaar,

Iran is steeped in the 20th century
and the preceding ones.

When the industrial revolution
arrives in arid Persia,

it will be oil's gift.

Oil was discovered
at the beginning of this century,

almost simultaneously
in Iran and Texas.

It initiated a never-ending boom
in Texas,

a society that was ready
to accommodate it,

but it is just a fortune
with deferred usefulness

in a society
with a medieval economy.

Oil is assimilable
in a mechanized society,

but in a pre-industrial one

it is basically a commodity
to be loaded on ships

like spices in ancient times.

Much needs to be shot here...

much footage exposed,
because the bazaar

gives rise to a sequence
illustrating this contradiction.

It is seen in this girl
gazing into the camera

as she recommences
the everyday routine.

While the cameraman
goes back to his everyday zooms.

The energy that feeds traffic
on roads in Europe and America,

the plastic panels
on new skyscrapers in Frankfurt

and Park Avenue in New York...

the energy that powers
reactors and ships,

chemical fertilizers, fabrics...

the majority of products
we use today

are derived from the sticky liquid
the ancients called "stone oil".

Yet here, where it originates...

the energy of the future coexists
with an economic structure

that is only now throwing off
its archaic style.

According to Marco Polo,

"Aalamut is a land

where the old man of the mountain
set up residence.

In a valley between two mountains,
he landscaped

the world's biggest,
most beautiful garden.

There were the choicest fruits
and elegant palaces

decorated in gold
with animals and birds.

Knights and damsels there

were given hashish
by the old man of the mountain

and slept for three days.

When they awoke and saw
all those beautiful things,

the old man made them believe
they were in heaven.

Man journeys 8 days
into the desert,

where there is great aridity."

There are no fruits
and no drinkable water.

Few colours:
every shade of yellow.

Yellow sand, yellow rock,
yellow camels...

And now this yellow AGIP vehicle
from Land Rover,

that twice a week
does the 200 Km run

between the city of Isfahan
and the Zagros mountains.

It carries crates of vegetables,
beer, fruit, flour, eggs

and letters postmarked Piacenza,
Forli, Gela, Sondrio, Ancona, Parma...

Even the driver, Ascim,
is not from here.

He comes from deepest Arabia.

And Arabia, in the dazzling light
of this October morning,

is as distant as the Po Valley
and Lazio.

The Zagros mountains,

rising like a breaking sea
in deepest Persia.

Geologists, geophysicists,
independent researchers,

have said that the Zagros range
probably sits

on an oil field.

So for seven months,

14 Italians live around
the world's highest oil well,

on the peak of Mount Rig,
buffeted by winds at 3,300 metres.

Rig calling.

Hello. Trecciolo speaking.
What can I do for you? Over.

Good morning, Trecciolo...

Ready to write?
I'll give you the latest. Over.

Yes, go ahead.

If the hole
has the usual characteristics,

the upper part stays unchanged.

Remarks:

in the lower part, we need to drill
with an O.S.C. 3 bit,

12 and 1/4" in diameter...

to 1250 metres...

going back over
the following sections...

938 metres...

Just think...

fifty million years ago...

this mountain range was a sea.

They weren't mountains,

but land that was
50, 100 metres under the sea.

Today they're over 300 meters
above sea level.

When AGIP decided
to do research in Persia,

the Zagros region was one the first
assigned to them.

One of the three areas...

one of the most difficult areas,
that no one wanted to explore

because of
the difficult logistics involved.

This well,
located at 3,300 metres,

is probably one of the highest
ever drilled.

It's definitely one of the highest
in the northern hemisphere.

When you fill up your tank
at a gas station,

you don't consider the difficulties

and sacrifices involved
in constructing...

and the extraction of crude oil.

When we were planning this well,

we had three possibilities
for transporting the materials

to this height.

We could choose
between building a road,

a telpher line
or using a helicopter.

After weighing up
the various possibilities,

we opted for the telpher system.

We have huge difficulties building
the telpher line.

We had to start from a height
of 2,300 metres...

and then carry the building materials
up to 3,300 metres by hand.

At around 3,300 metres...

the drill has started to pierce
the leocene strata...

Giarum is the local name
for these formations.

They are Tertiary strata,

formed around
50 million years ago.

These strata
like those of Bangestan for example,

are...

widespread in this area.

They're porous...

permeable and can contain oil,
if it managed to get there.

We're interested in this oil
that has moved,

that has emigrated.

During its emigration,
oil tends to rise.

If it reaches the surface
it oxidises and is wasted.

But on its journey it can
encounter particular conditions

and unusual structures
that trap it.

This is our installation

that we had to section
and bring up in pieces,

making modifications

to adapt it to the maximum weight
of two tons

that was available to us
with the telpher line.

This tower you can see
is called Masp...

and is not mounted vertically,
but horizontally.

We raise it

and it almost seems like a missile
launch pad when it's raised up,

because it does a movement
like this...

and it comes up until it's in
a vertical position.

Now we're walking on the
Giarum formations

that the drill had to bore through

so it penetrated the covering
of the oilfield...

perhaps this is
an odd choice of word.

The cover is made up of
impermeable strata

that hold, trap and block oil.

In English they're known
as "traps”.

There are three necessary conditions
for the formation of these traps:

the existence
of a porous rock reservoir,

the existence
of a covering rock

and the existence
of an unusual structure.

A kind of overturned basin...

What happens with these fossils?
What's your relationship to them?

Sometimes, when I see fossils
that are especially complicated

or beautiful,
I dream about them at night!

For example?

The other night I dreamt about
Globorotalia velascoensis,

which is a fossil I like
a great deal!

Once we located this area,
which was rather hilly,

we flattened it

and built this ditch by hand,

which in technical jargon
is called a "cellar.

And this is the starting point,
the base.

Then we assembled
all these metal structures

that are needed to support
the hoist and the tower,

once it's in a vertical position.

The stage we're seeing
at the moment

is the final one
in the extraction operation,

when the drill comes out.

We were at 1,427- 1,428 metres.

We encountered layers
that were quite hard,

the bit was worn down.

The drill, with serrated rollers,
rotates against the rock

and bores through
metre by metre,

finally reaching the structure
identified by the geophysicists.

What about these pipes?

They're commonly called "pipes”,
but in jargon they're "rods".

Depth is reached by screwing
one iron rod onto another

almost endlessly.

They reach depths
of thousands of metres.

Recently, a drill in Louisiana
bored down to 8,000 metres.

- Is it very tiring?
- Not really.

It was a cold night.

Not really freezing,
but it went down to zero.

What about that team
going down?

They're off-duty.

- Meaning?
- They work the 8 to 17:00 shift.

- What's your name?
- Armando Antonioni.

- Where are you from?
- Reggio Emilia.

- And the other guys?
- They're all Iranian.

- What are their names?
- Johnny...

Giant...

Paradi, Sherifi...

Calibi, Giambuani...

What's it like working with them?

It has its problems,
but it's not bad.

- Are they good workers?
- Definitely.

When did they start working here?

These guys, about 3 months ago.

That one six years,
this one five years...

he worked on other
AGIP sites in the area.

- What about you?
- Fifteen years.

- Where did you start?
- At Reggio.

- How long have you been here?
- Eight months.

- When will you go home?
- In eight days, I hope.

We're a work coordination team.

- What's your job?
- I'm chief engineer.

- Thanks, that's all.
- Goodbye.

Giant, Johnny, Sherifi, Giambuani...

Cheerfully named Bakhtiari,
why do you laugh when you look at us?

Because you were Bakhtiari shepherds
and now you're Bakhtiari workers.

Because you discovered
that machines are as docile as sheep.

And keeping pace with your
companion from Reggio Emilia,

you laugh because innocence
will always be innocence.

No, you seldom beat us
and you lose often.

D'Alessandro, what's your job?

Site manager.

Meaning you supervise
all the work on the site?

No, the engineer does that,

I'm subordinate to him.

- Where are you from?
- I'm Abbruzzese, from Aquila.

- Married?
- No.

I haven't had time,
I'll get the chance later.

- Who's this gentleman?
- Sciamanna.

- What do you do?
- Site chemist.

Will you be going back to Italy
for the winter?

I hope to go back
in 5 or 6 days, not for winter.

- Was it a tough period?
- Quite, because...

the climate isn't pleasant.

What are the main problems
with this climate?

Breathing, above all,

and it's very tiring coming up here
on foot every time.

Massimo,
does this remind you of anything?

With all the letters you get,
it should do.

- This is the record...
- No, no, it's this one.

Here I've no chance...

Forget it!

Especially here, you can imagine
our predicament.

- What's your name?
- Massimo.

- Surname?
- Scarafoni.

- Where are you from?
- Sondrio, in the Valtellina.

How many months
have you been here?

Just over six months.

- Away from home for six months?
- Yes, of course!

What's your job?

Telpher operator.

Was building the telpher line
difficult?

I wasn't here last year.

How come you never talk about work?

Because we come here to relax.

We only talk about work
if it's strictly necessary!

For example?

If something changes,
to give orders before ascending.

- What's your name?
- lozzi.

- What?
- lozzi.

- Where are you from?
- Piacenza.

Piacenza again!
What's it got that's so special?

- Squares and horses.
- Is that all?

- We've got everything!
- Do you miss Piacenza?

- Yes, a bit.
- Life's good there?

You bet!

- Married?
- Yes.

- Children?
- Two.

Listen to what my seven-year-old
wrote, he gets up to all sorts!

What a pest!

"Dear dad, we were happy to get
your letters and photos,

the ones that show
your hut.

Aunt Rosanna came
on Saturday, May 17th,

but before she got here
I broke the chandelier in the hall.

Later on,
I broke the 'Tiger Twist' record.

Laura and Diana said
it seemed like a tornado

had passed by Reggio Emilia
on Sunday, 4th of July."

Excuse me, what are those photos?

My world, so to speak.

My wife...

Lory, she's three...

Mauro, seven,
and Deanna, eleven.

Can I see your hands?

The hole must be cemented over,

sealed up with a plug of cement

so the snow doesn't ruin
months of work.

The cementation is a hard job,
but it's the last one

before the winter break.

Swirling cement dust
suddenly ages the men,

whitening eyebrows, backs of hands,
corners of mouths.

In the bewilderment
of this last task,

the Italians dream of Italy,
the Bakhtiari dream of Isfahan.

Isfahan, a name...

that would work for a perfume,
a medication,

a princess from
"The Thousand and One Nights".

But it's a city, an old capital
like Venice and Florence.

Splendidly exhausted,
civilized, resonant,

like Venice and Florence.

Old English ladies
in love with the East,

German archaeologists passing through,
French carpet dealers,

and for the last year,
twice a month,

the Zagros mountain drillers
come on vacation here.

They're already used to the
turquoise of the mosques,

so they visit the cinema

or imagine the faces
of women under their chadors,

the veils that cover them
from head to toe.

We were sucked
into a whirlwind,

which overturned the helicopter

and sent us spinning down

until we were 50 metres
above the ground.

With the door open...

having lost lots of stuff
we had on board with us...

The helicopter,
when we got out...

after a very lucky landing...

was filthy, all smeared
with oil and gasoline.

That left us all very shaken too.

From what they tell me,
I'm only here for 3 months.

So I don't see the need
to bring the family down.

Listen, Ceccarelli,
have you ever had an accident?

Accidents...

I've never had a real accident
with the helicopter.

Just the other night,
we were going to Khorramshahr

and suddenly the IGB stalled.

I switched off the engine
and we went into autorotation.

- Meaning?
- We used the autorotation technique.

We landed without the engine
switched off,

with just the help
of the main rotor.

- Were you scared?
- Oh God, to being with...

I was a bit disturbed at first,
but after...

it didn't seem like a big deal.

Months ago, the Santa Barbara,

a small support ship
for AGIP Mineraria,

broke its moorings
during a storm

and drifted without a crew
into the Persian Gulf.

According to maritime law,

a crewless ship belongs
to whoever boards it first.

A man dived into the sea
from this helicopter.

- Weren't you scared of sharks?
- Sure!!

I kept looking round
as I was swimming,

hoping that no sharks
would attack me.

Anyway, I've got a tough hide.

Well... the sea
had some big rollers.

They me told me it was
force 3 or 4 sea,

but it had big rollers.

Going back to when
I had to board the Santa Barbara...

I couldn't manage at first,
so I took off a shoe,

put my big toe in a hole,

waited for the wave
and then leapt on board.

I got some covers
from the hold right away.

I stripped off
because my clothes were soaked.

I came out of the hold
of the Santa Barbara

and there was a patch of sun
about 4cm wide.

I stood there to warm up a bit

and the helicopter came back
30 minutes later.

They lowered down food,
clothes and cognac.

Helicopter pilots
are romantic characters,

with their own private mythology
and philosophy of life.

Today in Persia, yesterday in Libya,
tomorrow in Patagonia.

They live with a simple romanticism,

freely adapting
childhood adventure stories.

They play a crucial role.

They link the "Wild Cat",
the artificial island

that drills in the middle
of the Persian Gulf, with the world.

They transport provisions,
mail, spare parts, men.

I was a fireman
for about five years.

Why does everyone say
you do odd things?

I don't think I do odd things.

True, I do stuff
that normal people don't do...

For example,
I went to Italy by Vespa...

I'm quite happy,

mainly because
I like my job.

And we work with nice people.

I find the drillers
to be pleasant and polite,

they're easy to work with.

What does your duty as a pilot
actually consist of?

Linking the base at Bashir
with the "Cat",

transporting personnel
and materials.

The place is nothing special,

you've seen for yourselves that
it doesn't have anything to offer.

- The house is nice.
- Because we've fixed it up.

But outside you just
don't know what to do.

With this heat,
you're better off indoors.

It's unbearable outside.

And the presence
of the surrounding desert...

its fearful, sacral
oneness of time and place

under the sun.

Tonight it's quite cool,

other evenings
we couldn't sit outside.

They call this wind "Hooshak™
and it comes from the south.

It's very humid,
sometimes it reaches 100%...

with a temperature of 40° or 50°,

so you can imagine what it's like.

When I'm not working,
I've always got plenty to do.

If the helicopter's in use
it has to be serviced,

and there's always stuff to do
in the hangars.

"Wild Cat":

according to some,
it was actually Col. Drake,

deviser of the first drilling
in Pennsylvania,

who gave that name
to the exploratory well,

or the trap that man lays
for oil,

digging in the bowels of the earth.

Length of the "Wild Cat"...

57 metres.

Width:

47 metres.

Height of legs:

56 metres.

Weight of "Wild Cat":
2,200 tons...

plus 3,500.

What's the main function
of a platform like this?

To create the conditions
of dry land at sea.

Therefore, the artificial island
has to be really stable,

its surface constantly level,

and its supports firmly rooted
in the seabed.

- Summer's terrible here.
- What's it like?

The temperature rises
above 50°...

in the shade!

And the humidity reaches 100%.

The humidity is really annoying.

The sea, which covers
70% of the world's surface,

is expected to make a huge
contribution to energy and materials.

Not eight months,
but I've been here for several,

several years all together!

Maybe too many, because
one should go home more often.

But...

we're used to it,
it's all part of the job.

In the year 1900,
worldwide production of

crude oil totalled 20 million tons.

Today this figure has risen
to 1,400,000,000 tons per year.

A profession like that of a farmer,
for example.

We are oil workers,
you, for example, are a director.

- It's the same thing.
- You get used to anything.

Actually, you end up

with a keen interest in it.

It was 1859.

Half dowser and half industrialist,

Col. Drake arrived in Titusville,

a village in the Pennsylvania wilds,
population 300,

changing the face of the world
with his adventure.

Around the same time,
Capt. Ahab of Nantucket

chased Moby Dick,
his mythical white whale,

across the globe's seas.

"I'll chase him round the Horn,

and round the Norway Maelstrom,

and round perdition's flames
before I give him up.”

Subtitles by:
Laser S. Film s.r.l. - Roma