Heresy without redemption. Pinocchio by Francesco Notti

OcchioPinocchio, directed by and starring Francesco Notti (whose death anniversary was only a few days ago), was released in cinemas in 1994. It is considered among the Tuscan director’s darkest and most forgettable films, and yet it is the one that fits the bill perfectly. To take on a symbolic dimension. This work represents, in fact, the conclusion, or one of the possible conclusions, of that very strange phenomenon that characterized Italian cinema between the end of the seventies and the beginning of the nineties – which we can define here, soon, Tragic comedy: A comedy, that is, one that reveals, in the depths of its satirical character, the characteristics of gloom, light, and the impossibility of reaching a decisive end. A cinematic season capable of telling us, from an artistic point of view, the last part of the decline of culture (Italian, but in general, European) whose roots can already be seen at the end of the 1960s.

Among this comedy of sunsets, of searching for scraps, Francesco Notti is the artist, today, more on the margins, and Pinocchio’s ukiyo constitutes, for this future oblivion, an essential stage: it is, in fact, the work that draws the denouement. From the period of his creativity – a movie cursed, is not entirely clear, is very difficult to produce, and has had little success, either critically or commercially. The ending of Notte the Artist thus coincides with one of the possible conclusions of that Italian tragicomedy, the ending of which in turn reminds us of the twilight of this sunset art and the consequent entry into a new culture – one that we still inhabit. Today – he is now looking for new and different art forms. However, precisely because of these reasons, Ukio Pinocchio must be reconsidered: in this lost film we find, in fact, the symbolism of the end, both artistic and historical, which we should perhaps reinterpret, for a better understanding of the ending. The desert condition of our current way of life.

So we have to ask ourselves: Can Okubinocchio really be considered a failure? What version of Pinocchio does Francesco Notti want to return to us, and what is the possibility of revalidation – that is, the connection he creates between this tale everlasting And contemporary society? Among the works of the Tuscan director, it is certainly the most ambitious: one can, in fact, also read it as a search for that full recognition which, at a certain depth – a problem that will also be shared by other protagonists of this cinematic season – can be seen as constantly missing. However, this will be precisely the film in which Naughty will be unrecognizable – precisely in the film, that is, in which he tries to jump, without abandoning the characteristic features of his tragicomic foundation.

In any case, OcchioPinocchio, although a film emblematic of Nuti’s artistic incompleteness, should still be re-read today for many reasons – both technical and artistic. In the strict sense of the word Both for the possibility of understanding some very important historical passages: because it represents, from a plastic standpoint, the art of a sunset which in turn is a sunset, but also, and above all, because this work is able to bring us into conflict, even today, with our contemporaneity. In fact, the tale of Pinocchio has been updated with the aim of criticizing what has been defined The civilized world – On the trail of that beautiful album by Eduardo Benato, released in 1977, titled, specifically, Wireless doll. Therefore, he is no longer Pinocchio in training, who must advance, become civilized, to finally enter into the mechanisms of society, but Pinocchio becomes a heretic and a pervert, who precisely thanks to this structural anomaly is able to reveal the fissures and wastes, the margins that he produces, incessantly, A world that is only superficially harmonious.

The savage Pinocchio is a radical alternative to the world of high finance in which he finds himself forced to live: isolated from civilization, unable to understand its rules and laws, and therefore longing to escape – to go beyond the world. reservation – Toward a different world, a different form of life. Far from being a bildungsroman aiming for ultimate integration, the action here is the opposite, formally illustrating the dark side of that world – showing, that is, the waste that does not integrate, and makes everything to avoid integration. . Representation seems, however, unable to transcend the impossibility of integration – the horizon of struggle seems, in fact, impossible within a homogeneous society that increasingly acquires the character of struggle.Non-refundable. Pinocchio Nutti is thus a self-evident defeat – a representation of marginality irrevocably ostracized by a society that is increasingly difficult to confront, and which struggles, despite its efforts, to retain something of that culture in the twilight: evenAncientIn the face of what is new, he seems to utter words that are impossible to understand due to the surrounding context.

Thus, what now seems to remain, as a future possibility of redemption, is the dimension of story: the description of stories of marginalization, without immediate redemption, in the hope that someone or something, in a different future, will be able to put them back together again. – Saving them in this way from oblivion, loss and ruin. For these reasons, one of the keys to the film lies in describing the relationship, which gradually becomes more intimate and emotional, between the deviant Pinocchio and Lucy (the female representation of Lucifer), the criminal escaping the police. . As for Pinocchio, so for Lucy, distance from civilization represents, however, the possibility of preserving something – if nothing else is thinking otherwise – at least from an existential perspective: Lucy, in fact, despite Her dimension of guilt, despite her periodic atrocities, is such that she is able to maintain her passion for marginalization – and to be moved by sincere pity for that Pinocchio who never grew up, to the point of risking her own existence in order to save him from certain death. Thus, in this case too, the traditional narrative of the fairy tale is inverted: Pinocchio and Lucy, both of whom do not have the possibility of immediate salvation, actually retain, in their marginality, the possibility of a future utopia, of a world antithetical to modernity. Civilization dominant. However, at present – in a society in which the voice of marginalization is increasingly diminished – what remains seems to be merely the possibility of describing anthropology and existentialism, heretical and residual, but increasingly resigned, that is, difficult to transform into subversive potential, or revolutionary space.