Poi Qualcuno

Poi Qualcuno
by Luciano Dolcini

Short film, running time 4' 52'', Italy, 2011.
B/W

Poi Qualcuno is an ode. Poi Qualcuno is an ode to Federico Fellini. Poi Qualcuno is an ode to cinema as an art form.

Luciano Dolcini is an extraordinary photographer: skilled, experienced, intelligent. Among his many activities, he devoted himself to take some time, with his shots, the deepest essence in works of visual artists. Then he dedicated Poi Qualcuno to the seventh art and to one of its greatest exponents, using just the raw material that the film is made of: photography. Matter sympathetic to him!

1. RIGHT SIDE - PASSION

They are archive's photos in which we see a good-looking Fellini, at some stage and pauses processing. You can see some of his beautiful muses (Anouk Aimée, Anita Ekberg, Sandra Milo) and some of the most loyal mates (Gianni Di Venanzo, Marcello Mastroianni, Ennio Flaiano). It is not only traditional photos in a beautiful black and white. He has blown in them and animated them! There is no doubt that with this gesture, he wanted to pay tribute to the inventors of the cinématographe, as well as Fellini himeself; look in epigraph we find biblical phrases, attributed to Louis Lumiere.

With these pictures full of poetry, the author tried to evoke all the magic, the wonder, the astonishment of a child facing a fantastic world. He tried to recall the emotions felt by the first witnesses to the miracle of moving images: The origins of cinema, the cinema of attractions! The music by Roberto Molinelli helped him with its "angelic" chants placed on a carpet of sparkling sounds, with the melody played by bandoneon and then by viola, and the voiceover by Cristian Della Chiara, always calm and flat, but at the same time deep and full of pathos.

2. LEFT SIDE – RATIONALITY


 The work also maintains contact with the real world, made of inventions, technologies, implementations. Here we see the Dolcini's wink to the prehistory of cinema with Muybridge and his serial photos, with Reynaud and his praxinoscope; that Was a mythical era of inventions made by amazing and legendary characters. In the technologies of contemporary cinema, however, there is no tension, there is no effort. Everything is very cold and controlled. There are just dreadful amounts of green screen, CGI, 3D.

This little short wisely points out that the motion picture industry still employs (thankfully) so many people. And now he does not make that with pictures, but through the words. In fact, voiceover will mention, albeit in ways and in hushed tones opera, a series in organic production and distribution chain: from the grip of the operator room to the editor; distributors retailers and finally to the public. Relevant that in this long list the director to take a position as primus inter pares ("And then someone even had to get that movie."), To emphasize the complexity and the cooperative nature of the cinematographic work.

3. CENTRE – LIFE


Poi Qualcuno is also a hymn to life, just when it seems to deny it with an infantile act of evasion ("... because sometimes a movie is better than life."), And here echo the words said by director Ferrand in La nuit américaine by François Truffaut: "Do not be stupid, Alphonse: You're a great actor, work is going well. I know, there is private life, but private life limps for everyone. The films are more harmonious than life, Alphonse: there are no hitches in the movies, there are no delays. The films go on like trains, you know? Like trains in the night."


 Surprisingly, at the end of the short we hear the Master's voice: "Well, the movie should end here, in fact, it's finished indeed! It seems to hear the voice of one of my old producer: 'What!? Ends up ... without a glimmer of hope ... a sunbeam ... but give me at least a sunbeam' [...]" Dolcini, right in the end, taking advantage of this gentle metaphor reminds us what is the raw material the photograph is made of, which is also the raw material of life: light.