Pink Floyd
The Wall DVD

I have always wondered what it feels like to be a famous person, or more specifically, what it feels like to know you've had a certain impact on the history of music, to be idolized by many people, or perhaps criticized by others. Thanks to Roger Waters, I believe my curiosity has been amply satisfied with an adequate response, and "The Wall" understood as a concept even before being an album and film fully defines what might be the answer to those questions. The specter of war, the obsessive mother, the father dead in the Battle of Anzio, the failure of romantic relationships, the "weight" of being a rock star commanded by the puppeteers of show business, that's what it can be like to be the leader of a rock band among the most important in history. After all, we're talking about a person like many others (or almost) for whom life has reserved an extraordinary role. A man like others in whom there are secrets and hidden feelings, often kept under control, but which can sometimes surface: "Is there anybody out there?"—a plea that falls into the void... "...it's the response never given to the most painful and intimate invocations of every man, the silence of hearts that makes the soul tremble in the confusion of crowds...". I don't know to whom these words belong, whether Roger himself or the author of a book on Floyd that I own. I can only tell you that it's the phrase that impressed me the most and best describes the desolation of the soul, the feeling that (I believe) each of us sooner or later is forced to experience due to the many situations life puts before us.

Each of the situations described creates brick by brick an alienating wall, from which it can be truly difficult to escape, and even when you're out, what can happen? "...you can smash your heart against some bloody wall..." ("Outside The Wall"). As someone (rightly) commented on the last album review, there is no point in singing the praises of this work 26 years later; it doesn't add anything new to what's already been said. I will only tell you that (for those who've never seen it) not to rely on what you may hear from people who haven't understood anything about "The Wall." The scenes are crude and much more pervaded by pessimism compared to the album, and it couldn't be otherwise, since the visual representation creates a different effect from listening, even though the underlying concepts are the same. The film is much harsher, so much so that Gilmour declared himself "disturbed" by such a representation, and like him, many others who, having known it superficially, might give you hasty judgments and trivialize the theme. Even the mediocrity of people reached my ears, saying: "but is the protagonist of the film a fascist politician?" No, of course not; those who know the work know that for Roger Waters the equations hold: fascism = loneliness, loneliness = antechamber of death. I believe that perhaps no other musical works contain as many concepts as this one, particularly of such political and social stature. It would have been easy to simply film the band during live performances of the album with plenty of scenery and publish it; they would have achieved great success as always, but the Floyd did far more in their name, leaving yet another mark of their originality.

Directed by Alan Parker, scripted by Roger Waters, and enriched, where real images alone could not represent, by the animations of Gerald Scarfe. It was portrayed by Bob Geldof in the role of the protagonist Pink, which at the time caused much stir since the ideal interpreter was supposed to be Roger, at least on paper. The dialogues are present in approximately only 5% of the film. Premiered at the 35th Cannes Festival on May 22, 1982, at midnight, "The Wall" made history, an era, a musical journey, an original way of expressing forms of art, a remarkable contribution to music reaffirming it as a tool of great intellectual capacity beyond mere entertainment.