In Il libro d’ore (The Book of Hours), real characters and fantastical visions gravitate around the city of Bologna, chasing each other and overlapping in a mix of dream and reality, present and past, sacred and profane, visual and sound: the wanderings of a homeless man, the daily life of a young anatomopathologist, the construction of a bell, the games of three children – fragments of stories that compose a complex, labyrinthine portrait of a place, as well as a musical meditation on time and death. The circle of seasons and day intersects with the flow of human life and history, linear in appearance but nourished by mysterious flashbacks and unexplained echoes. The poetic word establishes a dialogue between the living and the dead, between memory and imagination, becoming a guide to perceiving and confronting the emptiness and death that surround and nourish life.
Margherita Malerba