In 1993 Björn Runge started work on a film about the well-Éknown Swedish writer Sture Dahlström without scenario, plan or structure. Slowly but surely, a film emerged in which the process of film making formed part of the theme. The material grew from a rough sketch to something as unusual as a Swedish documentary for the cinema.After the Swedish screening, the critics were divided into two camps. Several thought the film was incomprehensible and that the viewer didn’t find out anything about Dahlström. However most of them praised the film as an alternative and unusual portrait of the writer, or as a ‘surrealistic and funny film about a surrealistic and funny man’.Runge used video, super 8 and super 16 and sometimes also manipulated the film material itself (slowing and scratching it etc.). With these simple means and coarse methods, the film-maker was able to move more freely and achieve more creative results than if he had adopted a more conventional approach. The Volcano Man, that in some ways resembles a fake documentary, is called in full The Volcano Man – El Hombre Que Baila Sobre Un Volcán – A Film About the Author Sture Dahlström. The Spanish part of the title means ‘the man who danced on a volcano’.
