Luca Rastello

The films of the eXistenZe section are introduced by guests who are representatives of Italian culture, politics and society. There is a will to create a stronger link between cinema and society. As a journalist and writer you have been invited to present Black Narcissus to the festival audience. How did the festival involve you? I guess I was invited because of my non involvement in the matter, my ignorance concerning cinema. I was contacted by one of the programmers of the festival, Giorgio Vasta. He asked me to introduce a movie, and explained to me that I simply should represent a viewer who doesn’t come from any specific cinematographic skill or academic studies and who makes general remarks based on his own impressions.

Could you choose the film? No, I couldn’t! The second point of our conversation was on the fact that I should have chosen the film from a list of three. And each of them had nuns and priests as main characters!

Why did you choose the Powell and Pressburger film? Well, one of the first reasons was for sure Deborah Kerr’s smile… A second reason is connected to my recent watching of Slumdog Millionaire, a film that succeeded in stirring up different emotions in me and, I have to admit, in capturing me in different aspects. Boyle’s film succeeds in the suspension of incredulity which is the first element of a successful story. The viewer forgets that what is told or shown is implausible because he finds himself deeply following the film. But we don’t have to forget to critically analyse it. Indeed Slumdog Millionaire is proof of the mythical gaze of the West on the Orient, as in Black Narcissus. And for me it has been extremely interesting to watch again a movie, of the 40s, bearing the same mythical colonial look. Black Narcissus has worked as a lecture key. I definitely found the Powell and Pressburger operation more honest: they tried out their colonial look. The other (the East) is used to examine itself (the West). And the fact that in the titles the Ovidian figure of Narcissus appears: doesn’t that support this game of reflections and images? The film, starting from the mythologisation of the Far East, arrives at a self-analysis, a self-intelligence. The mirror that the film uses to trigger this operation of awareness is one of painted backcloths, of a weather that imposes snow during the Christmas mass, of a flood of perdition and conflicting feelings… Slumdog Millionaire makes a rather more devious operation because it is still the colonial look but without the mirror of the papier-mâché backcloth. In Boyle’s film we’re into the true slums, among true poor people. There is no more declaration of consciousness which could push (or force) the West to think about its own look and judgement. Even more the West is reassured by a fake conscience.

Do you think the Alba Festival’s tradition of inviting guests to introduce films is effective? And the festival format in general? Actually it was not a presentation. It was more of an invitation to the showing. It has been like talking to a group of friends. With regards to festivals, I believe they have always been working well in the field of cinema. Although I find the flooding of the festival format into all domains annoying. We have festivals about almost all subjects! We don’t reason about the world, but we always create more of a mere market. Culture is no more the means but just the aim, and the festivals are a result of this behaviour.

Mirtha Sozzi