The art of happiness
From November 21 at the cinema we will be able to see The art of happiness , a beautiful animated film by Alessandro Rak voiced by Leandro Amato, Silvia Baritzka, Francesca Romana Bergamo and Antonio Brachi. Already recognized of cultural interest by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities - General Directorate for Cinema.
We are in Naples, immersed in a gloomy and exuding atmosphere. The protagonist is a taxi driver, Sergio, who, driving his faithful white taxi, crosses the Neapolitan streets every day. Not yet overcome the trauma and depression for the death of his brother who left ten years ago for Tibet as a Buddhist monk. Often his thoughts are confused with the impetuous rain beating on the windows of his taxi. There are many characters who will contribute to giving life to the story, which will be filled with unique and singular fragments of life. We will see a radio speaker, a singer in search of success, an uncle that Sergio has not met for some time and many others. The taxi will become the prince with which Sergio escapes from the world and his personal microcosm.
Customers will be small meteors that will bring him back to reality, ephemeral and fleeting. But who are they really? Real men or just projections of his sick conscience? Or opportunities to heal? Sergio crosses his experiences and thoughts with each of them, helping to implement a sort of Freudian reconstruction of his brother's life and the elaboration of his death. Comforted by this fictitious and muffled world, Sergio struggles to return to reality, and would like to replace it with the endless journey aboard the car. Memories become overbearing even when he returns to listen to the musical pieces composed together with Alfredo. Thus he will decide to resume playing the piano, and to revive his brother through it.
The cartoonist Rak has created a real masterpiece, going well beyond traditional techniques. Indeed, he was able to combine the simplicity of the stroke with a much deeper art, which touches the sectors of psychoanalysis and cinematographic narration. At Adnkronos Rak he made the idea perfectly: "I wanted
describe Naples in its decay. I isolated a moment of 'ugliness' in the city, a glimpse of it in a moment of maximum defaillance, linked to the perception of the protagonist. I wanted to create a small picture of the abyss in which people can only fall through their perception. Because then a clear sky is enough to make room for completely different thoughts ". This story is a whirlwind of feelings, delusions, streams of consciousness, dej vu and leaps into the unusual. Human traits are distorted by hallucinating, almost schizophrenic visions. The taxi crosses a dirty, lived-in, smoky and unreal Naples. Sergio travels empty, getting lost in thoughts, dreams that are confused with reality and photographs that tell a life with his brother now lost forever. He thus appears increasingly alienated and distant from the world, in search of illusions that will destroy him minute by minute.
The art of happiness an excursus on the difficult process of working through death, loneliness and mourning. Is there really a sense at the end of an existence? This is what Sergio asks himself. What is moving is the juxtaposition of such hard and painful issues with the exceptional sensitivity with which they are treated. The wandering of the mind in obsessive thoughts and depression is led to excess, and the protagonist embodies the emblem of absence that takes your breath away. Rak, however, does not want hope to be lost, and in the last part of the film he grants Sergio the possibility of rebirth, which will take place thanks to the music that has indissolubly linked him to his brother. Sooner or later the rain will cease, as will its torments. Happiness becomes an art to be shaped and treated at any time. The desire to rediscover oneself takes shape, both as a push to go beyond mere human fragile and mortal nature, and as a relational dimension that dynamically builds human relationships in their entirety. Sergio's taxi becomes the metaphor of the mental cages that prevent us from freeing ourselves, but we often forget that the key lies within us, the only architects of our destiny. The search for freedom is also taken up by the animation techniques of the film. Masterfully crafted in 2d and with live inserts, it is a perfect mix of realism and abstract art. The traits and faces of the characters are simple but very rich in expressions, making their inner world shine through in any movement. The colors fully reflect the idea of delirium, dirt, oppression and suffocation that Rak wanted to give, alternating between monochrome and unpredictable palettes. Naples seems painted by Baudlerian reflections and in constant search for unconscious recomposition. When Sergio remembers and gets lost in his flashbacks, the drawings become darker, dense and dramatic. Definitely a film not to be missed, a journey into the human mind and its dark meanders, an animated story for adults that will not leave indifferent.
by Susanna Buffa
| Original title: | The art of happiness |
| Country: | Italy |
| Year: | 2013 |
| Gender: | Entrainment |
| Duration: | 88 ' |
| Directed by: | Alessandro Rak |
| Dubbing | Leandro Amato, Nando Paone, Riccardo Polizzy Carbonelli, Renato Carpentieri, Jun Ichikawa, Lucio Allocca, Patrizia di Martino |
| Production: | Big Sur, Mad Entertainment, Rai Cinema, Cinecitt Luce |
| Distribution: | Cinecitt Luce |
| Exit : | November 21, 2013 (cinema) |
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