•
Rating: Desolation and consolation, politics and anti-politics, future and tradition, hope and melancholy, regime and democracy, Italy and not Italy. Welcome to Italy of the postwar period, of exoduses, of defeat, of rubble and slow reconstruction. A quick zooming in and here we are in the wounded land of Friuli, land once again mutilated by that muddy, unstable, fickle, volatile border with the dark Kingdom of Slovenians, Serbs, and Croats: very few kilometers separate the fields south of Carnia from the gloomy Soviet bastion, from Tito's Adriatic and the foibe, from the Yugoslav realm that has just seized the Julian lands. Yet, behind the karstic inlets, beyond the Triestine Grand Canyon - witness and host to atrocities that can never be narrated in non-inhuman terms - lies the new Eldorado of a group of youngsters from the Tagliamento. Boys of life who - between hard work in the fields and a joyful village dance episode - dream and point the binoculars towards the last socialist conquest, the Belgrade of General Tito. Youngsters disillusioned by the course of history, overwhelmed by hunger, eager to taste (and test) with their senses the alleged magic of victorious communism, of ruling Marxism.
The Dream of a Thing, an eminent masterpiece of Pasolini's neorealism, is a raw novel, the correct narrative of the postwar valley of tears, the proper depiction of a generation that has laid down bayonets and the fasces and is about to embark on a journey to the golden unknown, a journey that will unfortunately prove to be a terrible setback, a futile escape from Western misery to Soviet misery, two sides of the same worn-out coin, worn out on the chessboard of the Superpowers. They cross the border, reach up to the Dalmatian coast, to Fiume torn apart by the barbaric horde of contenders, and are forced to fall in line for a handful of food, to be overwhelmed by the "red" bureaucracy, to pray for a handful of daily crumbs. And this in the name of a faith, a system, a new regime that perhaps is not the "final solution" for the mass of the outcasts.
And in Italy? In the Friuli threatened by the Iron Curtain? At the foot of the wild Carnia? Return to seeking asylum in the desolate native villages? The only possible solution, the only train perfectly on time.
Yet, the ardor towards that utopian Communism, the devotion to the great leaders of the Scarlet Banner remains. The Bel Paese is just a bland colony of the liberators from across the ocean, the new De Gasperi government is hundreds of kilometers away, the post-fascist party system seems to be coiled in the suspicious hands of the prelates, bearers of an ethical and cultural code that is hard to deny and reject. And that Lodo, that sort of aegis for the wretched subjugated peasants, is nothing but yet another false panacea of a corrupt system, the new opium imposed by the intelligentsia of the Roman palaces. There is nothing left but to express anger and sadness, to form new squads, to gather youngsters, to knock on the doors of the high-ups, to extract promises of uncertain value, to surround palaces, to demand help, work, solidarity, equality, food, life. Revolution.
Meanwhile, in that triptych of small towns, the people carry on, Stalin or Tito, De Gasperi or the Pope: work and toil, love and sacrifices, vespers and Sunday masses, virginity and modesty, hope and the Body of Christ, the Earth and the Heavenly. And never forsake the joy of folklore, the wine of taverns, the tipsy youth who rest, exhausted, from riot plans and the day's sweat. Material misery and nobility of soul go hand in hand, to dance a folk melody, to drink good wine to forget the pain of time and History.
Then, the Night, the Death. A young groom-to-be perishes, the fireworks factory explodes, with him other colleagues unaware of what would happen. Finally, the epilogue: another life prepares for the last journey, defeated by fever, by the sweats responsible for degenerative madness, for mental regression, for the return to the origin. Extreme unction, passing of the soul. And here comes true, here appears the Dream of a Thing. The Redemption from the Human.
Loading comments slowly
