Johan Padan and the descoverta de le Americas

This all-Italian cartoon was taken from a theatrical comedy by our Dario Fo, nobel prize for literature, and as in his style, the story is full of buffoonish comedy. It is a production that to tell the truth would have deserved more attention in cinemas and more propaganda from the media, given that not many Italian animated films are produced, also due to the fact that from the point of view of the quality of the animation and its realization has nothing to envy to Disney or Dreamwork films. In fact, the excellent director Giulio Cingoli, expert in cartoons, has enlisted the beauty of over 160 designers to create the sequences of about 1500 animated and masterfully drawn scenes.

Johan Padan e la descoverta de le Americhe is the story of Johan Padan, a boy who resembles in an incredible way a young Dario Fo, with the voice of Fiorello, who lives in the Bergamo area around the early 1500s, in full period of colonization of America by the Spanish and Portuguese. The presentation of the character is done by Dario Fo himself when in the introduction of the film he says: "There are two basic types of chronicles on the discovery and conquest of the Americas: those written by scribes following the discoverers and conquerors and, on the other hand, the story of the co-stars who do not count, the nullagonists, the filthy troop Johan Padan. " In fact, the boy represents one of the many boys of those times, who had to strive every day to try to survive by improvising a thousand jobs, initially Joahn Padan even worked as a puppet for the exercises of lansquenets soldiers. Johan Padan escapes from the soldiers and seeks better luck in Venice where he meets a girl who is about to be executed because she is accused of witchcraft, but Johan is not a blameless and fearless hero who escaped arrest when the guards lock the girl in prison , embarks on a ship bound for Seville. Here he finds work for an acrobat who organizes fireworks displays, but Johan also manages to combine one of his own, inadvertently lights up the fireworks and sets off the hell, but to escape the angry crowd, he jumps on a ship that has set sail the pier heads towards the Americas "a la descoverta de le Americiche". Near the coasts of Florida Johan Padan and his friend the sailor Trenta Trippe, escaped the shipwreck and were found on the shore by the local Indians. Initially the Indians were very distrustful of Johan Padan as in those parts the European white man certainly did not leave a good memory of himself, in fact that land was plundered by the Spanish conquistadors, who set fire to entire villages in an attempt to find gold and make slaves. Johan Padan was initially in serious difficulty as the tribe dedicated to cannibalism wants to eat it, but with the passage of time our protagonist will be able to win the esteem of the Indians, improvising himself as a sorcerer. Johan Padan is renamed by the Indians the `` son of the sun that is born '' and improvised orator and high priest, he tells the Indios the story of Jesus and the Gospels, inventing from scratch the parts he does not remember well. Johan Pada n fully integrates with the culture of the Indians and tries in every way to encourage them to fight against the invading Spaniards. Thanks to all his past experiences and knowledge learned, he manages to organize the Indians into squads of soldiers and teach them to fight. Johan Padan and his tribe will therefore be able to defeat the Spanish conquistadors and free the Indians from their oppression.
The film in the fun leads to reflect on the sad story of the wrongs suffered by the indigenous peoples of the Americas by Europeans, but also on the fact that history has not only been made by discoverers, inventors, kings or generals, but also by the ordinary people, the beggars like Johan Padan who embarked as sailors participated in the exchange between two completely different cultures, without having to resort to war. To further enrich the enjoyment of the cartoon there are the music and songs sung by the protagonists (a bit like the Disney classics) and for Johan Padan the songs are interpreted by Fiorello.

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