ORFEO
The first feature film by Virgilio Villoresi, a director known for his experimental and visionary approach, is freely inspired by Dino Buzzati’s Poema a fumetti, published in 1969, which reinterprets the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in ...
In Poema a fumetti (1969), the great Dino Buzzati (The Tartar Steppe), caustic commentator for Corriere della Sera, who even allowed himself to poke fun at Kafka (delightful is his article noting Kafka’s ubiquity in Prague), delights in bringing together three of his greatest passions: poetry, narrative, and drawing. The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, transformed in the story into Orfi and Eura, is transplanted by Buzzati into the hippie world of the 1960s, where Orfi is an emerging rock star. Artistic references to Andy Warhol’s Pop Art run throughout the text, imbued with an eroticism unusual for the period, so much so that the publication was initially blocked.
The first feature film by Virgilio Villoresi, a director known for his experimental and visionary approach, is freely inspired by Dino Buzzati’s Poema a fumetti, published in 1969, which reinterprets the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in ...
Poema a fumetti could also be experienced as a test for DAMS students: who recognizes the German painter Caspar David Friedrich in Hill and Ploughed Field near Dresden, or the shadow of Murnau’s Nosferatu? Who spots references to Fellini in Trains on Multiple Levels, or to De Chirico and Escher’s staircases?
In an atmosphere suspended between Diabolik and Poe’s The Haunted Palace, the story unfolds as a descent into the Underworld to retrieve the beloved. Yet, at the moment of their meeting, the classical tale takes a drastic turn. Young Orfi, full of vitality and ambition, fails to draw Eura to him. To the power of music, the young woman counters with reason: “Here commands the great law. Don’t believe in old fairy tales.” Upon returning, a demiurge in jacket and tie briefly shows Orfi the true bodies that “sleep beneath the earth, forever, in the silence of the deep soil…” A fascinating tale.
