The three filmmakers Ferri, Menegazzi and Pernisa visit Franco Piavoli in his garden so that he, at the age of 90, can tell them about his next project. In the story that emerges, Piavoli, the iconic director of independent Italian films, takes us by the hand and leads us to explore his Earthly Paradise. Piavoli becomes Adam; he walks with Eve towards a peak to contemplate and understand infinity, but it’s in the detours along the way, in the pauses, that heaven is revealed to them, in the pleasure of the senses, a shared state of grace. This imaginary journey is also biographical, the dream deeply rooted in the material and everyday dimension; an invitation to the fulfilment of presence, the intensity of experience and the relationship with the world.
With his monologue addressed to his companion Silvia, Piavoli brings the filmmakers and the audience to a state verging on hypnosis. As his storytelling allows us to rediscover the enchantment of the world, the tenses merge: paradise is simultaneously the memory of the past, the immediate present of sensation and tending towards imagination and discovery.
The restrictive approach suggested by the filmmakers – two reels of Super 8 film one after the other – accentuates this dreamlike state. When the images go dark, it’s Piavoli’s voice that takes us into the depths of intimacy. Fleetingly, we have the feeling that an entire life is being shown to us.
Margot Mecca
