A Muzzarell

An emotional journey that catapults the viewer into a scenario that alternates between beauty and social degradation, through intense, reflective and adrenaline-filled moments. Moments that manage to capture the attention and the heart and which offer themselves as a starting point for analysis and reflection on the new generation of young people who are victims of social, moral and cultural hardship.

Director Diego Santangelo manages to excellently represent, through a neorealist interpretation, both the difficult and harsh social context in which the film develops and the path of redemption of the two young protagonists. A journey that is at times surreal and fairy-tale, among the enchantment and wonder of those places that offer themselves as a natural setting for what I feel like defining a masterpiece of independent Italian cinema.

The director diego santangelo speaks deep to the soul. A really different style from contemporary Italian movie genre shows 'a muzzarell as an outstanding experimental movie. Of course many callbacks of Italian NEOREALISM can be captivated through the still frames and the sequence plans but on the other hand the color grading and the lightning evokes an aesthetic which belongs to a Californian movie tradition made of block busters.

The story hit me because it has no given and finished message but it's an open path to deeper reflection about soul moving themes as childhood, violence, drug abuse, freedom, death, love. I felt involved as a viewer because the story avoids in every part to give unique answers so the suspence is quite intense and the emotion comes through the whole movie as a crescendo. Images, the few spoken words in dialect and the music, which surely is meant to become a masterpiece of Neapolitan music productions, cause and intense feeling of compassion for the main characters and so the vision is vibrant and really involving. I would definitely reccomend the movie especially to whom wishes to see an non conventional "turistic friendly fresco" of Italy (in either both ways with the pizza or Mafia cliches) but who really desires to get a neorealistic view on south Italian environment where beauty and fatalistic ugliness can coexist as in a Caravaggio's painting. Indeed Caravaggio is not mentioned accidentally as in many frames the light and the compositions reminds of his famous light technique.

A story whose subject is teenagers and their desire to, at all costs, imitate "the grown-ups" even by accepting risky compromises. The narrative is a bit reminiscent of that of Pinocchio who is led astray by Lucignolo: the little protagonist is convinced by a peer of his to take "hard" drugs instead of the lighter ones. Through a "hallucinatory" journey the two protagonists cross beautiful places in the Neapolitan area and the somewhat neglected ones in Caserta; the spectator, therefore, despite the presence of "hot" topics, has the opportunity to discover enchanting places and at the same time reflect on the problems linked to the recovery of areas abandoned to themselves due to the carelessness of the local administrations.

It's always a pleasure to go to the cinema to see a film shot in the areas where I live.

I was pleasantly impressed by retracing places of historical and archaeological interest on the big screen such as the Sibyl's cave in the Phlegraean fields; It is often difficult to bring the atmosphere of such beautiful and iconic places into the photos you take, excellent work by Director and Director of Photography.

Another great point is the contrast between the realism of the characters consistent with how we are used to seeing them and the supernatural and ethereal personalities that have permeated our lands for millennia.