FASCINUM

  • Rocco Natale

Fascinum is a short film that I made during the summer 2015. This film is inspired from books, documentaries and stories having an anthropological character. This way I started to increase a special interest for the magic-religious theme present in my land in the form of tradition. Many elements as places, characters or ritual stories, had been source of inspiration and helped me to write a story with sacred influence and with a divine atmosphere. Basilicata is a land full of anecdotes; this story gives the land a charming, mystic and timeless look. The region is absorbed by a vivid landscape that gives an almost picturesque look through many aspects that are still primordial and rural.

I’ve decided to develop the short film when I realized that there were good vibes for develop and share my feelings in front the guys that I had chosen, friends and colleagues close to me in that period. I choose to realize this film during a ten days travel in which we’ve filmed the short-film, thanks to the attention at the fine arts for the various music expression and to the experimental film. From the beginning I wanted to give the troupe the possibility to live this travel like a performance in tight contact with the land where I come from. This way, I tried to develop a unique creativity that tied both visuals and auditory fields.

The short film is a travel between the sacred and the profane. I’ve divided this work in three chapters plus the interlude that in this case don’t work like a film pause, but it’s a gear giving a change to the film. The stories tell about the birth, the labour and the love, through the character who gets the memory of them, almost like in a lucid dream. Each anecdote can be considered a fight against the evil.  The evil is a character which became definite by the red color. The protagonist became the symbol who represents the rural imaginary of Basilicata, a country full of bucolic and peasant aspects. This project express much in terms of the body language, both for the absence of dialogues, and especially with the projection of the very meditative vision which emphasizes the imaginary through a research made both by the sounds and the magic atmospheres. The spirits of the men are exorcised in front of the flames in a fight against the pain. This part of the film it’s a moment characterized of unique colors with a different rhythms. In each part this short film is tied to symbolic language of ancient times. The mountain becomes a sanctuary loaded of pathos.

I decided to film using an old handycam. This choice was born as a metaphor that I used to translate an idea both rural and simple. These elements become living part through the local language and the habits, especially in a small country.

Fascinum is part of a magic world. In the tradition this word is identified as a name of a spell or the evil eye. In the tradition the anecdotes or the cures are the best part of a oral culture, very ancient but still actual. In the short film the spell is identified with the mirror. This is the magic object for excellence, and I used it to represent the throw of the evil eye. The evil eye is a superstition about the power of eyes over the people that we observe. In the magic-religious tradition, especially in the southern part, this kind of spell is cured by the old people. The effects could consist in a series of bad luck events that suddenly could be showed on the person affected. This one could be influenced by what he feels. There are talismans against the spells and the evil eye used by the popular tradition but these changes on the base of the different human societies. The protagonist, through memories and atmospheres, exorcises his own pains during the walk of faith. He has to scale a mountain, he has to go on top to eradicate his evil and take back his spirit balance..

This short film is an idea born from the deep love that I feed for my land.

Official website here.