Dopo la visione del bellissimo cortometraggio di Pappi Corsicato Pompei Eternal Emotion, qualcuno del pubblico lascia la sala, altri sono intimoriti dal prossimo film o forse solo dal suo titolo: Heterophobia. Cala il buio. Appare un personaggio, Mariano, che si masturba. Altri spettatori se ne vanno, schegge di perbenismo lasciano la sala. Mariano per un minuto è amore meccanico. Così si apre Heterophobia, “una rapsodia antipatriarcale”, lungometraggio di Goyo Anchou.
Archivi categoria: Film
Pompei Eternal Emotion by Pappi Corsicato
Article by: Alessandro Arpa
Translation by: Cristiana Caffiero
Pompei Eternal Emotion is the new production by Pappi Corsicato. It’s a short cut which lasts about 10 minutes about Pompei, its archeological sites where we can find some bodies petrified by magma. The bodies of the tourists appear hibernated as well: they are puppets without life that turn into victims of the camera. In the several rooms there are some shells without soul. This short cut is really memorable….memorable is the right word to indicate it if we consider the disasters which have occurred in Pompei in 2014 which have destroyed an important part of our artistic heritage.
Anyway what will be next is even more amazing. After Corsicato’s movie, someone in the audience stands up to move away while those who are still inside the cinema are someway frightened by the movie that will follow. Maybe it’s just because of its title: Heterophobia. Just few brave ones among the audience have stayed. It’ s dark in the theatre. From the screen there’s a light arising towards the audience: Mariano who masturbates. Then some other people step out of the theatre. They looked disgusted by what they have just happened to watch on the screen: this is what it’s defined as self-righteousness. For about one minute Mariano is what we can call mechanical love. This is the way Heterophobia starts. It soon turns into an anti patriarchal rhapsody. Heterophobia is a movie directed by Goyo Anchou. Mariano is a young guy who has been raped. He represents a vile puppet of a kind of heterosexual illusion. He has to face the strong caste of society, which is represented by patriarchy according to the Argentinian director. Patriarchy rapes people with its rude aggression. The main character is a small part of the entire universe, a small being created by God who looks for a small place for himself in the world. Mariano denies himself: he just steps from one love to another, he’s not reciprocated and his fate is disillusion and frustration. He has a main relationship with an heterosexual who abandons him at the end. Mariano thinks that God doesn’t care about his creatures and suddenly turns into Satanist. He takes part into an initiation ceremony which is wonderfully described by the Argentinian director: Masonic and Cabalhistic symbols, images from movies such as Cabiria by Pastrone, Maciste in hell by Freda, Zasie dans le metro by Malle. This movie combines some quotes from classic movies as well as dreamlike, hypnotic images that hint to Kenneth Anger or Derek Jarman. After Un chant d’amour by Jean Genet, Heterophobia can be considered the new manifesto of the homosexual culture. Mariano understands that it’s a nonsense to look for happiness in other people or to be a frustrated heterosexual. He comes to understand that to accept oneself is the way to happiness and freedom. Now Mariano is happy with his new boyfriend. He has come to a safe rescue towards a future where homosexuality won’t be a taboo anymore, machismo will turn into nonsense and people will feel free to abolish the so called boring normality.
“High Rise” di Ben Wheatley
Il film è l’adattamento cinematografico del romanzo Il condominio di James Graham Ballard. Il premio Oscar Jeremy Thomas era da anni interessato alla realizzazione di questo film, è riuscito però a produrlo solo nel 2014.
Presentato in anteprima al Toronto International Film Festival, poi in concorso al Festival di San Sebastián, High Rise arriva al TFF e viene proposto nella sezione Festa Mobile, dedicata alle opere fuori concorso e inedite in Italia, che esprimono il meglio della produzione cinematografia internazionale.
High Rise by Ben Wheatley
Article by: Lorenzo Trombi
Translation by: Roberto Gelli
The movie is the screen adaptation of the novel High Rise, written by James Graham Ballard. Jeremy Thomas, winner of the Academy Award, had been interested for year in making a film from Ballard’s novel but he only succeeded in producing it in 2014.
After showing a preview of High Rise at Toronto International Film Festival, the film was presented at San Sebastián International Film Festival and now it arrives at TFF within Festa Mobile section, reserved to non-competing films and unreleased films in Italy, which represent the best international movie production.
The movie is rich in rather interesting visual solutions such as the different kinds of oppressive verticality related to the skyscraper itself, where the story takes place. These are well conveyed by oblique and sloping framing or by the protagonist movements surrounded by the lift’s mirror but the film is not able to completely overcome the difficulties to cinematographically render situations and atmospheres implied in Ballard’s novel, in which we find different levels.
The screen challenge was perhaps to shape that metaphor of modern society, where everyone has the same role of tormentor and victim. The represented microcosm is located in a skyscraper, which offers every kind of thing people may need.
Most of the characters never leave the building except for the new surgeon, the protagonist Robert Laing, who in the first part of the film goes out to work. But in the end, after the tumultuous events have ceased, we will see him starting his professional activity within the skyscraper.
Often, the residents are referred to by mentioning their room numbers, as it happens in the dialogue between Laing and the architect during the squash match. This is clearly a sort of obsessive depersonalization.
Let’s step back and have a look at the plot. It all starts with the new surgeon moving in a luxury flat in the skyscraper. It won’t be long till he realizes the social distribution taking place throughout the building: the poorer classes live downstairs while wealthy people stay upstairs. The architect even invites him to visit his extra luxury attic but Laing looks indifferent and he only seems to be interested in seducing women.
During a blackout things become chaotic and everyone starts to understand that the more they go upstairs, the better they feel. This “physical” rise corresponds to a “moral” transformation: the majority of them become greed and fight with one another. One of the main female characters explains to her husband her sense of suffocation and tells him that she would like to enjoy the same light that those in the upper floors have at their disposal. Documentary filmmaker Richard Wilder heads the uprising with the aim of killing the architect.
In the last scenes we hear a speech saying that capitalism will never allow political liberty.
However, the film mood is oppressed by a script, which sometimes aims to be overfilled with facts and dynamics. The characters take themselves too much seriously and there is a lack of whatever possible temporary break out and lightness, which could reduce its general claustrophobia. Almost all of the film is made of internal shooting.
There are a lot of narrative premises in the movie but their developments lead too much towards a dead end track.
For sure, High Rise is worth seeing again, in order to ponder its content.
“Phantom Boy” di Jean-Loup Felicioli e Alain Gagnol
“Mi chiamo Leo, ho 11 anni e ho un segreto… Sono un eroe.”
Phantom Boy è un film d’animazione che racconta la storia di un bambino malato di leucemia il quale scopre di possedere un potere: può staccarsi dal suo corpo e volare come un fantasma. Invisibile agli occhi di tutti, Leo attraversa i muri dell’ospedale e svolazza libero per la città di New York.
Continua la lettura di “Phantom Boy” di Jean-Loup Felicioli e Alain Gagnol
“Sophelikoptern” (“The Garbage Helicopter”) di Jonas Selberg Augustsén
Sophelikoptern (The Garbage Helicopter) è un curioso film del regista svedese Jonas Selberg Augustsén, presentato nella sezione TorinoFilmLab del Festival.
La sequenza iniziale ci mostra una piattaforma d’atterraggio immersa in una fitta foresta nordica, sulla quale viene sganciato un enorme container da un elicottero che sentiamo, ma non vediamo. A seguire si cambia ambientazione: un’anziana signora all’interno della propria camera si accorge di non poter più fare a meno, dopo un anno di attesa, del suo orologio ora in riparazione; alza il telefono, chiama la nipote dall’altra parte della Svezia e chiede di riportarglielo. Inizia così il viaggio della nipote, di suo fratello e di un amico attraverso tutto il Paese.
Continua la lettura di “Sophelikoptern” (“The Garbage Helicopter”) di Jonas Selberg Augustsén
“Fahrenheit 451” di François Truffaut
Tratto dal romanzo omonimo di Ray Bradbury, il lungometraggio del 1966 diretto da François Truffaut s’inserisce nella retrospettiva “Cose che verranno”.
La società prospettata nel film, in un futuro non ben definibile, prevede un divieto assoluto e tremendo: leggere libri. Questi sono vietati, messi al bando, e se trovati, bruciati dai pompieri che non spengono incendi, ma li provocano. E’ proprio uno di loro il protagonista del film, un tranquillo esecutore di ordini che ha deciso di non porsi alcuna domanda sul perché debba mettere in atto questa barbarie. Sarà l’incontro con una vicina di casa, un’insegnante lettrice clandestina, a instillare in lui dei dubbi e infine un impeto rivoluzionario che cambieranno per sempre la sua esistenza.
Continua la lettura di “Fahrenheit 451” di François Truffaut
“The Lady in the Van” di Nicholas Hytner
Mary Shepherd (interpretata da una fantastica Maggie Smith) è una vivace donna anziana che vive dentro il suo caro, vecchio e puzzolente furgone. Vaga gironzolando per le strade di Londra in cerca di un posto sicuro dove stare, fino a quando non arriva a Camden Town, un quartiere nel Nord della città. Qui la gente si dimostra subito gentile nei suoi confronti, nonostante l’odore che porta con sé davanti alle loro case.
Continua la lettura di “The Lady in the Van” di Nicholas Hytner
“Akira” di Katsuhiro Ôtomo
Neo Tokyo, 2019. Dopo la Terza Guerra Mondiale il Giappone è in crisi. Economia allo sbando, politica corrotta e inefficace non riescono a trovare il modo di far ripartire un Paese in cui il crimine e la violenza la fanno da padrone. Unica cosa che sembra importare al Governo è Akira, sorta di progetto segretissimo volto al controllo di un potere enorme, che ha causato il proliferare di sette di invasati in tutta la città, i quqli predicano l’avvento di una divinità chiamata Akira. In questo caos sfrecciano su bolidi truccati gang di motociclisti, tra cui anche Kaneda e Tetsuo, ma un incidente inaspettato durante una scorribanda notturna come tante cambia per sempre le loro vite e quelle dell’intera nazione.
Akira by Katsuhiro Ôtomo
Article by: Matteo Merlano
Translation by: Kim Turconi
Neo Tokyo, 2019. After the third World War, Japan is in crisis. Economy in ruin in addition to corrupted and ineffective politics cannot find a way to start up again a Nation where crime and violence rule the roost. The only thing which seems to be of a certain relevance to the government is the Akira Project, sort of super secret project intended to control an enormous power, which has caused sects of obsessed people to flourish all around the city, preaching the arrival of a divinity called Akira. In this chaos, gangs of bikers speed across the city on modified beasts. Among them there are Kaneda and Tetsuo. An unexpected accident during one of the many raids, will change their lives and those of the entire nation forever.
Undisputed masterpiece of Japanese animation, the movie of Katsuito Otomo is not just a cinematographic opera, but a whole experience, leaving the audience breathless. Produced in 1988 (in Italy came out only in 1992) it was the most expensive anime in History (with a budget of one billion yens) and brought to the creation of a specific production house to realize it, the Akira Committee, with Otomo himself as the chairman, who employed for years more than one thousand animators. All the fears and the contradictions of that decade are contained in this dystopia which draws fully from western cult movies. An elaborate, chaotic and colossal Neo Tokyo is the spitting image of the rainy Los Angeles from Blade Runner (the time of setting is, for this reason, not randomly chosen) ruled by lawless riders (Mad Max) who go all around the city on futuristic bikes (Kaneda’s motorcycle design is identical to the lightcycles from Tron). The aesthetic magnificence is something which leaves everyone amazed and the masterly sound work, overseen by composer Shoji Yamashiro, was an epochal evolution in the animation field.
The concept of Evolution itself is the base of Akira. What is this mysterious energy, so devastating that it needs to be hidden in the bowels of the earth? Who controls it? Where it comes from? Who owns it and how can it be used? The spiritual aspect of the film lies in this ambivalence of the concept of Evolution – especially technological evolution – which often leads to a regression when technology goes too far.
Is it creative or destructive? Otomo is certainly a son of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That “sun” – which kills tens of thousands people in a few seconds – has affected his worldview. Evolution is a powerful force, but it can cause pain if mishandled. Akira embodies this philosophy and make it to burst with an explosion of visual effects and visionary experiences that leave an impression on one’s mind. The future portrayed by Otomo is crazy, chaotic and illuminated only by neon signs and skyscrapers lights. It is a future in which people run at full speed without any purpose, or they run for the wrong reasons.
The title of this review is taken from the famous Blade Runner monologue of Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer. Our choice has not been accidental, because the Future is already here – and perhaps already experienced. Otomo, just like Scott, “has seen things”. And we have seen them with him.
“La Patota – Paulina” di Santiago Mitre
Santiago Mitre, dopo il successo di El estudiante, vincitore del Gran Premio della giuria al Festival di Locarno 2012, arriva sulla scena torinese con quest’opera seconda, La Patota –Paulina, film in concorso nella corrente edizione del Festival. Al regista è bastata una sola visione del film Patota (1961) di Daniel Tinayre per rimanere colpito dal personaggio di Paulina e accettare di dirigerne il remake.
Continua la lettura di “La Patota – Paulina” di Santiago Mitre
“The War of The Worlds” (“La guerra dei Mondi” ) di Byron Haskin
In una calda notte d’estate, dalla volta celeste che sovrasta un’America sonnecchiante si staccano alcune stelle. Meteoriti incandescenti si schiantano al suolo e da essi emergono sinistre navicelle spaziali armate di raggi laser. I marziani devono lottare per la sopravvivenza e sferrano un potente attacco alla Terra con l’intento di colonizzarla, trascinando l’umanità in una guerra dei mondi dagli esiti potenzialmente distruttivi.
Continua la lettura di “The War of The Worlds” (“La guerra dei Mondi” ) di Byron Haskin
“Moonwalkers” di Antoine Bardou-Jaquet
“Un piccolo passo per l’uomo…”
Moonwalkers è il primo lungometraggio di Antoine Bardou-Jaquet. Si tratta di un’action-comedy incalzante e con una trama molto originale. Un susseguirsi di azioni e colpi di scena mai banali fanno procedere la narrazione in modo fluido. In concorso nella sezione After-Hours. Le risate sono assicurate.
Continua la lettura di “Moonwalkers” di Antoine Bardou-Jaquet
“Oggi insieme domani anche” di Antonietta De Lillo – Conferenza stampa
Torino, 23 novembre 2015 – Gremita la sala Conferenze stampa del TFF per il briefing del film Oggi insieme domani anche inserito nella sezione Festa Mobile. Presenti la regista Antonietta De Lillo e le sue collaboratrici Maria Di Razza, Teresa Iarpoli, Erika Tasini e Fabiana Sargentini.
Antonietta De Lillo ha spiegato l’articolato progetto del “film partecipato” che ha portato alla realizzazione di Oggi insieme domani anche, mosaico di sguardi, volti e storie raccolte da numerosi autori in giro per l’Italia.
Continua la lettura di “Oggi insieme domani anche” di Antonietta De Lillo – Conferenza stampa
“Westworld” (“Il mondo dei robot”) di Michael Crichton
Chi non ha mai desiderato fare un viaggio nel tempo, vivere anche solo per una settimana in un’epoca mitica e lontana nella più completa immedesimazione storica?
Westworld di Michael Crichton dice che il sogno della maggior parte delle persone si può realizzare al modico prezzo di 1000 dollari nel parco di divertimento Delos che è diviso in tre parti: Roman World, Medieval World e Westworld. Ognuno può scegliere in quale ambiente storico trascorrere la propria vacanza; durante tutto il periodo di permanenza ogni desiderio potrà essere realizzato, dal partecipare ad un autentico banchetto medievale all’uccidere un cowboy insolente. Tutto sembra vero, ma solo in apparenza. Gli esseri che abitano questo mondo fittizio, infatti, benché simili agli essere umani, sono macchine, robot antropomorfizzati.
Continua la lettura di “Westworld” (“Il mondo dei robot”) di Michael Crichton
“Sexxx” di Davide Ferrario
Il corpo è l’assoluto protagonista del nuovo lungometraggio di Davide Ferrario. Sexxx, presentato al 33° TFF all’interno della sezione Festa Mobile. Cos’è? un documentario? sì. Videoarte? anche. Un film insolito e affascinante, ipnotico per lo spettatore.
Tutto nasce quando Ferrario assiste al balletto di Matteo Levaggi Sexxx alla Lavanderia a Vapore di Collegno (magnifico spazio che è la sede del Balletto Teatro di Torino diretto da Loredana Furno) e se ne innamora, se ne appropria, come lui stesso ha dichiarato, decidendo di farne un film. Ad ispirare il coreografo era stato il libro di Madonna, intitolato proprio Sex: Matteo Levaggi decise di farne uno spettacolo di danza e aggiunse altre due x al titolo per portare all’estremo il concetto di sensualità. In Sexxx, secondo il coreografo, il corpo è portato all’esasperazione da un mondo sempre più esteticamente esigente.
Davide Ferrario ha plasmato con la macchina da presa i corpi della coreografia di Levaggi e ci ha restituito una visione evocativa e affascinante. Decomponendo, e poi ricostruendo, il balletto del coreografo, Ferrario ce ne offre una sua personale interpretazione: la macchina da presa è parte integrante del movimento dei ballerini e ci offre una visione ravvicinata e scomposta dei movimenti che in teatro non potremmo mai vedere. Il regista inserisce poi delle digressioni, attraverso brevi inserti di riprese fatte sul set di Guardami e un breve film a soggetto (Room 423) in cui sono protagonisti due amanti (Gloria Cuminetti e Saverio D’Amelio). Il tutto sempre senza dialoghi né voce off.
L’inizio e la fine di Sexxx sono emblematici: il film si apre e si chiude all’interno di un museo. Arte del corpo nel passato (attraverso i quadri di Palma il Vecchio e Tintoretto, Diana e Callisto e Susanna e i vecchioni) e arte del corpo nel presente attraverso la performance di una coppia di persone anziane. L’intento di Ferrario è quello di celebrare il corpo come qualcosa di sacro e la citazione finale, tratta da Footnote to Howl di Allen Ginsberg, lo chiarisce benissimo.
Regista e coreografo ci insegnano che un corpo non è volgare quando diventa oggetto dell’arte, anche quando imita o mima gesti direttamente riconducibili alla sessualità. Anche se i ballerini sono sempre quasi nudi, non siamo mai disturbati da questa visione, totalmente estranea a qualsiasi tipo di strumentalizzazione o volgarità. Non si tratta dell’esaltazione di un’esasperata sessualità, ma di arte visiva, danza nel senso più puro perché mette in risalto la fisicità senza timori, senza filtri.
I ballerini (Kristin Furnes Bjerkestrand, Manuela Maugeri, Viola Scaglione, Denis Bruno, Marco De Alteriis, Vito Pansini) sono preparatissimi dal punto di vista tecnico e hanno un’espressività che va ben oltre il corpo: si intravede quasi la loro anima danzare, talmente sono coinvolti nella coreografia. Le musiche scelte, tra cui spiccano It’s No Game di David Bowie e My Sex di Currie-Allen-Leigh eseguita da Ultravox, accarezzano i movimenti dei danzatori senza mai sovrastarli, ma esaltandone la perfezione coreutica.
Il risultato è un lungometraggio di pura bellezza, da vedere per “spogliarsi” letteralmente da qualsiasi pregiudizio sull’espressione corporea e la sessualità e vestirsi di consapevolezza del nostro essere pelle, materia, corpo.
“In fabbrica” di Francesca Comencini
Immagini contemporanee degli stabilimenti FIAT, in un notturno soffocato dal rumore dei macchinari. Stacco: secondo dopoguerra, un’intervista al alcuni bambini siciliani: “Dove sono i vostri padri?” Risposta: “In Germania”. Così inizia In fabbrica, documentario di Francesca Comencini vincitore del premio Cipputi nel 2007 come miglior film sul mondo del lavoro. Un altro premio Cipputi è stato attribuito quest’anno alla stessa regista, alla carriera. Continua la lettura di “In fabbrica” di Francesca Comencini
“Oggi insieme domani anche” di Antonietta De Lillo
Antonietta De Lillo è “nata condivisa”, come piace dire a lei.
Ce l’ha fatto capire con Pranzo di Natale nel 2011 e ce lo ha rispiegato in occasione di questo Torino Film Festival, in una sala del Cinema Massimo senza nemmeno una poltrona libera.
Oggi insieme domani anche è il suo secondo film partecipato, realizzato selezionando decine di filmini di famiglia, interviste, immagini d’archivio, contributi video improvvisati da chi ha accettato il suo invito a raccontare cos’è l’amore. C’è spazio per tutti, soprattutto per corti d’autore già conosciuti e premiati, come Solo da tre giorni di Yuki Bagnardi e Teresa Iaropoli, che ha vinto MoliseCinema nel 2013.
Continua la lettura di “Oggi insieme domani anche” di Antonietta De Lillo
In fabbrica (At the Factory) by Francesca Comencini
Article by: Lara Vallino
Translation by: Roberto Gelli
Contemporary images of FIAT plants during the night covered by the machinery’s noise. Break. Second worldwide postwar period: Sicilian children are interviewed about the matter “Where are you dads?” “They are in Germany”.
This is the beginning of Francesca Comencini’s documentary entitled In fabbrica: Cipputi Award winner in 2007 as the best film about work. This year Comencini has received the lifetime achievement award in TFF.
During the Fifties Italy relies on industry, in order to improve working life, which can guarantee a better lifestyle. In a short dialogue between a journalist and a worker we hear “Is it easy to find a job?”, “Yes, there is a lot”, which causes some astonishment among the modern spectators, who got used to the term precariousness. But those years represent the highest point for the local economy, the so-called economic boom: from all the areas of the peninsula people move towards the big northern industries, so as to find a job. “Would you come back home to Naples?”, “No, not even if they covered me with gold”, this is the reply given by a girl defending her new status of worker. The interviewed show themselves to be always satisfied, in a time when job is a source of money and sustenance. What is more, it is something, which people can be proud of. On the other hand, this period also witnesses a strange combination between guaranteed jobs and black market labour, sometimes related to child labour.
Those years give progressively birth to a class consciousness, which results in the first FIAT workers uprising in 1962. If it is true that they get better work conditions, more problems seem to arise like that concerning the housing of people coming from the south. As a female worker stated in 1968: “those who always work by using their arms, lose mental agility, memory and thinking ability”. This situation leads towards new strikes aimed at removing production lines: workers now want to take part at the production activity, not only by tightening bolts, but by putting something of their own into the final products.
With the 80’s the concepts of profit and progress come onto the scene and automation systems are adopted in the firms. Workers form picket lines surrounding FIAT plants 35 days long, the firm replies imposing unemployment insurance. On 14th August, 1980 workers not involved in the measure, together with common citizens, demonstrate in the streets of Turin. It is the so-called “March of the forty thousand”; an invisible crowd of people opposing workers strike and demonstration. The unprecedented event is a sign of a rising individualism and negation of class consciousness. From that time on, there were in fact no strikes anymore.
Nowadays factories are still there but their workers have become a sort of invisible entity: none of them thinks about protesting or striking. There is an emptiness in terms of unity, that same unity which would let the situation change. Above all, none seems to believe in change anymore. A sense of resignation and indifference has spread among workers causing the maintaining of the status quo, which was conquered through efforts during those years, when consciousness of factory workers in Italy was born.
Sayat Nova (The Color of Pomegranates) by Sergei Parajanov
Article by: Elisa Carbone
Translation by: Cristiana Caffiero
Sayat Nova was an Armenian poet who lived during the XVIII century. He was a troubadour who used to chant his poems in three different languages. He was also a monk who spent his life through sufferings and bad times- as we came to know during the whole film.
He was deeply in love with princess Anne belonging to the court of Georgia.
Sayat Nova is a complicated and almost mythical character.
The Russian director Sergej Parajanov told us about his life in this feature movie that had a difficult life as its major character himself. In fact this movie has been censored by the Russian government that compelled his author to change its title from Sayat Nova- which was the name of the poet- into The colour of pomegranate- which is one of the many living picture of the movie. Julian temple has chosen to show it at the TFF 33 in his own personal selection A matter of life and death. We can reasonably understand why he has chosen this film. The poet’s life is narrated by using a dreamlike, surreal, pictorial and symbolic style. We can immediately perceive the high sense of death, which is not meant as just physical death- the common destiny of everyman- but as a psychological death due to those continuous hints to suffering.
During the movie, which lasts about one hour and 30 minutes, human beings who are acting as mime don’t even utter a world. Anyway there are some extra diegetic voices that are represented by the writings in old Armenian language. They look like the captions we used to find in silent cinema. We can also hear some noises that are amplified to the extreme- such as the collective bite of pomegranates or the water heavily falling down the legs of the monks.
Each frame has such a vivid and allegorical colour that it looks like a living painting in the end. There are some recurrent colours: red, white and blue. They show their deepest tones that are those of the typical Armenian decorations when Sayat Nova was living there. The 4:3 is helpful to this pictorial research made by the director: each frame has some typical elements that are complementary such as it was a painting. Nonetheless this is actually a painting but we have to consider the fact that all the images are connected to the others since we have to remind that it’s a movie in the end. There are some elements such as some animals and some objects that without doubt remind to a semiotics study and would require at least a second vision of the film: roosters, pomegranates, a shell and a white lace that turns into red.
A first vision of this movie causes a double feeling to its audience: it is caught by the splendour of these images but at the same time it feels conscious that they won’t be able to re-elaborate what they have just watched in a rational thought.
Then it’s highly recommended to watch this movie another time, maybe three times, maybe undefined number of time if you want to grab its deep and mysterious meanings. In fact after watching Sayat Nova we have perceived such a splendour that we just have the feeling it would necessary and pleasant at the same time to watch it another time.