Review of Scarlet (2023) by Mauro_Lanari — 08 Sep 2023

(Mauro Lanari).

An extraordinarily experimental direction devastated by a screenplay that continually shifts the narrative center of gravity until it reaches nothingness. "Encouragement not to give up in the face of difficulties": but if he literally dies of fatigue? "Novella on the importance of dreams", "fatherly love will help Juliette to become a free and proud woman": where, how, when, in an epilogue so vague as to prevent us from understanding both her concrete desire and in what way would she fulfill it by running away with a ludopathic adventurer? Would this be fairytale lyricism, magical realism, suggestive and moving spell? "Pietro Marcello's images appear increasingly on the verge of vanishing [...] 'L'envol' is an impalpable object" (Sergio Sozzo), "a film that cannot fly even in its most successful part [...] and ends [in] the formal (self)satisfaction" (Simone Emiliani).