“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
This film went under my radar for far too long, but I’m glad that I have finally watched it, and what an experience it was!
From the very first moments during the opening credits we are presented by a beautiful painting, the film’s visual style is striking but at the same time subtle. One might draw similarities between the look of this film and that of Waking Life, both visually and thematically.
The animation is spot on it never feels too cartoonish which helps in conveying intense emotions through the characters’ faces.
The sound design is just as good here, but the soundtrack is the key ingredient here, it had to be and it was. Music plays an important role in the plot and it’s the string that holds the fabric of the film. Here’s a song from the film by Ilaria Graziano, (known for her songs in the anime Ghost in the Shell).
The voice acting is very well done too, especially our main character, it never felt fake or emotionless.
Now for the story, there isn’t an actual story here but that’s what makes this film so powerful and so universal. It is depicting a situation, a feeling, an existence. It is that feeling of existential dread and emptiness that haunts us all. The animation helped put those ideas into film and liberated them.
For most of the first half of the film we’re in the car with Sergio, a cab driver in the streets of Napoli, but despite that there are no dull moments here as there’s always some meaningful conversation with the passengers going on. The first thing noticeable is the amount of parallels that are being drawn, more like mirror images, e.g. an actual car on the road with a toy car on a map. The most significant parallel is a meta one, between this film, an animation, and real life, just as the toy car and Sergio’s cab. The nature of the film is a statement in of itself, the medium is used to go beyond words and through art to break the cage of the soul. Instead of thoughts being chains we should liberate them through our imagination and art.
If we leave our trash lying on the streets we’ll be overwhelmed and eventually suffocate, but we can recycle it make something out it. The same goes for life, a constant cycle of life and death, an Ouroboros of existence.
People who come into the cab treat Sergio as their mirror, projecting their thoughts and emotions on him but he too is doing the same, mutual reflection. This reflection releases intense emotions and just as in an Akira Kurorsawa film, all those emotions are floating under a constant heavy rain.
Another major theme here is the idea of the past and how it affects us. What are we and does our past define us ? And more specifically memories do they define us ?
Hearing the news of the death of his brother (this is revealed in the first minute, not a spoiler), Sergio’s past comes back to haunt him, the idea of wasted talent is killing him. He gave up his music to work as a taxi driver and he has been tormented ever since. These desires are manifested through his dreams, and sometimes through the image and memory of his brother.
The regret of letting his brother leave (he went to become a Buddhist monk) torments him. Just like that junkyard artist who took trash made it into art and found solace, Sergio shouldn’t let those memories rot inside him, he should instead take them and reshape them, recycle them to become a better person.
There isn’t a singular defined happiness, because each person has an idea and a different perspective.
The film is also interspersed with symbolism, objects relate to people and people to thoughts and emotions. The ashtray filled with cigarettes is a haunting reminder the “slow death” and the withering of Sergio and humanity itself, a deadly pleasure.
A letter from a dead sibling, a Buddha statue on the dashboard, these are all the shadow of Alfredo, extensions of him, he is alive in Sergio.
The film tackles too many questions, too many deep questions and it does that in a very short runtime. This works both for and against the film, most ideas don’t have a space to grow, it’s all too fast. But that could be a statement from the film maker too, that life is too fast to get all the answers. The film also never goes too deep into any of the ideas which gives everything an air of superficiality, but that might not be a problem for some because the style and the whole of the film fill that gap. The bigger statement is what matters here.
To sum up, this was a very reflective experience, everyone needs a mirror and art is the universal mirror for us to reflect upon. We shouldn’t be too worried about the future and our ultimately futile and fleeting existence, nor should we be worried by our past. Instead we should simply be in the infinite present, we should live.
