07/11/2022 - Co-produced by Italy and Belgium, Paolo Strippoli’s horror film is a post-pandemic movie which takes the fear, anger and social tensions amplified by social media, to the extreme

There’s something evil and toxic in the sewers of Rome, where the ancient Cloaca Maxima is still in operation, 2,500 years later, in Paolo Strippoli’s Flowing [+see also:
trailer
film profile] which, after gracing various festivals specialising in fantasy - Austin, Strasbourg, Sitges, Curtas, Brooklyn – enjoyed its Italian premiere within Rome Film Fest’s Alice nella Città line-up, and is now landing in the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival.

A scent which poisons the mind, triggers the most violent of instincts, and which also contaminates the Morel family. Their father Thomas (Belgian actor Fabrizio Rongione) is a man with a brilliant past who is now a shadow of his former self, seemingly wrung dry, and who floats between small jobs and taking care of his little girl Barbara (Aurora Menenti), who can no longer walk. His eldest son Enrico (Francesco Gheghi) is a rebellious teen with provocative and self-destructive tendencies. Father and son take it in turns to blame one another for a past tragedy which the director reveals to us during a long flashback set in the final scene, and which took place when theirs was a happy family also comprising their mum Cristina (Cristiana Dell’Anna). And, as it happens, conflicts and explosions of anger are becoming increasingly common in their apartment building, on the streets, in the supermarket and all across the city, which is well shot by Cristiano di Nicola, using gloomy colours and anamorphic lenses, and made further troubling by Raf Keunen’s music.

Divided into chapters alluding to the water cycle (evaporation, condensation, precipitation…) and taking a decisive turn towards “gore” halfway through, Strippoli’s second feature (after the Netflix movie A Classic Horror Story [+see also:
trailer
film profile], co-directed by Roberto De Feo) is “an emotional horror film”, as the 2017 Franco Solinas Prize jury described twenty-seven-year-old Jacopo Del Giudice’s screenplay while naming it their winner. A screenplay which has been re-written numerous times and whose most present iteration was penned by Del Giudice alongside the director and Gustavo Hernández.

“Emotional horror film” is the best way to describe the inclination, which we’re also seeing in Italian cinema of late, towards a hybridisation of films observing society and genre films. Several young screenwriters and directors are learning to use codes from horror films (or from westerns or sci-fi movies) to deliver symbolic discourse on contemporary attitudes. They’re turning to genre films to avoid a form of auteur cinema which has become increasingly self-serving. Just as George A. Romero’s first ever zombies offered up a reflection on racism, capitalism and consumerism, and now Jordan Peele is using horror to criticise American liberalism (Get Out) and the dangers of entertainment (Nope), in this post-covid period directors can play on every possible fear felt by a society perturbed by pandemics, the threat of nuclear war and ecological crises. Flowing’s post-pandemic origins are evident in how the movie takes the tensions born out of constrictions and restrictions - amplified by the constant, anxiety-inducing, background effect of social media - to the extreme. And it can’t not take up root within the geographical zone of horror. Strippoli makes this relationship with the present clear in a director’s note: “The Rome we see in Flowing is always on the verge of exploding, and it’s not too far from reality. You only need find yourself in a queue at the supermarket, in the post office, in a traffic jam, or on a crowded bus to feel the anger winding its way between people. This same anger feeds into the worst examples of politics today, which gives rise to the crassest outbursts on social media, which is making us increasingly individualistic”.

Flowing is a co-production between Italy and Belgium by Propaganda Italia, made in association with Polifemo and GapBusters. The movie will be released in Italian cinemas on 10 November, distributed by Fandango, with RAI Com handling international sales.

(Translated from Italian)