This is a spectacular achievement, of a perfectly-judged fable whose every moment and every detail is successful. It was made on a shoestring (they even had to wheel the camera in a supermarket trolley because they could not afford a dolly), but the production values look like and feel like a big-budget movie. The cinematography is deeply intriguing, partially due to the use of a highly light-sensitive digital camera, which is able to film in dark and moody places by natural light. Davide Ferrario, the writer, producer and director, is a unique cinematic artist. It is insufficient to call him brilliant, and even the word 'inspired' seems too tepid to do him justice. I would prefer to call him 'a force', like the wind or the waves. This magical film captures a kind of metaphysical power of the imagination, which transforms reality in front of our eyes. All except one member of the cast were unknowns. The project was a huge risk. But the result is a complete triumph. The casting was perfectly judged, and the performers more than delivered the goods. The only one with experience, Giorgio Pasotti, says little because he plays a silent character, but evokes the character's inner being with total success. Even more astounding is the performance by Francesca Inaudi, and she is more than 'a natural', she is a 'supernatural', whose facial muscles were designed for film-making. Another star of the film is a bizarre and gigantic building in the city of Turin called 'the Mole'. It is one of the most mysterious film sets ever used, and what is more bizarre, it is all real. Nothing about this film is 'normal', thank God, since what is more boring than normality? And yet nothing is abnormal either, it is just that it is all happening in the imagination, which transcends the difference. Two stories intersect, like two intersecting light-cones in space-time, and from the crossing of their beams, brilliant and scintillating interference patterns emerge, and then the individual stories are re-directed and electrons and positrons spray out in different directions. The film is about a collision of two parallel universes. No, three. The third is us.
