“Captain’s Log”, Sixth Evening

Maremetraggio has reached the heart of Italian cinema and can boast the authoritative presence of director Francesco Maselli in its crew. The author of ” I delfini” – The Dolphins – and “Lettera aperta ad un giornale della sera” – Open Letter To An Evening Newspaper – and the guardian of political social activism in the Sixties and Seventies was welcomed with a warm applause upon his arrival at the City Park.

Another breathtaking evening of cinema under a star-studded sky started with Andro Merkù’s typical irony and continued with the three scheduled film shorts. The evening was opened by the Swedish film short by Joanes Stiarne Nilsson and Ola Simonsson who express their views on the estrangement of office workers: a character with a strange face is shocked to notice that every day the same gestures are done and the same identical situations including the same identical interjections are repeated.

Fortunately, there is a party at the Hotel Rienne where something magical seems to come to life in what seems to be a sort of dance of candles… Fantasy and subtle irony are the hallmarks of a work with an aura of romanticism.

Then came the turn of one of the most eagerly awaited film shorts, “L’homme sans tête”, by the Argentinean Juan Solanas. It is an interesting fable on diversity, which shows great tenderness in dealing with this social issue. It tells of the torment of a man without a head who is going to buy one before a date with a beautiful girl.

This small masterpiece is rich in cinema quotations among which those referring to gothic horror movies like “Cabaret” by Bob Fosse and surrounded by a retro atmosphere of irresistible charm.

Then came another Scandinavian production with the truly entertaining film short “De beste gar forst” by Hans Petter Molland: the terrifying quicksand of a pleasant hillside holiday resort that swallows a group of nice elderly people, but they don’t really seem to care.

The movie “Liberi” – Free – by Gianluca Maria Tavarelli competing in the Ippocampo section was then screened. It was probably one of the most lucid full-length films screened up to now. It is a disenchanted and accurate description of the malaise of young people and it focuses on the difficult communication between parents.

Riccardo Visintin