Notturno
directed by Gianfranco Rosi, France / Germany / Italy 2020, 100' (English friendly)
Notturno develops the topic of the director's previous film, Fire at Sea, which dealt with the migration crisis observed from the shores of Lampedusa, where boats with refugees arrived day by day. This time Rosi set off for the Middle East, to the places abandoned by people seeking refuge. He travelled with his camera along the borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Lebanon and Syria for three years, filming the inhabitants of a region severely affected by history. His documentary-essay depicts in a poignant and evocative way life in anticipation of another drama and the eternal uncertainty in a world of cyclical disasters. The structure of the film brings out this cyclicality: troops shouting menacingly, women mourning their dead sons, brothers and fathers, children suffering from post-traumatic stress, once proud soldiers turned into an army of prisoners. A psychiatric hospital as the stage for a political spectacle – one could hardly find a better metaphor for the madness that turns homes and people into ruins. Rosi's quiet, but brilliantly sounding film in its own way plays with the notion of the nocturne, a romantic narrative poem or a painting of a night scene.
