Presented in the International Competition of the Locarno Film Festival, Patagonia [+lire aussi :
critique
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interview : Simone Bozzelli
fiche film] by Simone Bozzelli centres on characters who powerfully affirm their diversity by living in a state of semi-autonomy based on rules of their own design. In the middle of this beautiful and forgotten humanity, we find Yuri and Agostino, a couple of outsiders who feed on love and violence. After the film’s premiere, the director told us about his discovery of the world of raves and his own relationship with independent cinema.

Cineuropa: Where does your interest for this part of Italy that the Meloni government would rather forget come from?
Simone Bozzelli: The idea for the film was born even before the “rave decree”, in the middle of the pandemic, at a time when there was a great desire for coming together, for returning to moments of celebration. It was all born out of a relationship I had, which was very similar to that between Yuri and Agostino, and through which I discovered the world of raves. As a somewhat “detached” spectator, I didn’t go there with any spirit of militancy relating to music, and I believe that this allowed me to capture the more particular and unknown aspects of that scene: the presence of children and animals, the license plates of camouflaged cars, etc. 

In your film, the bodies of the characters are looked at up close, as though you wanted to reveal secrets under the skin. What do the “bruised” bodies of the protagonists tell us?
I am obsessed with bodies. All of this was born during the time period when I was making short films and the budget for set design was limited. All I could count on were the performances of the actors, the power of their interpretations. Watching these films, I realised that their imperfections, their scars, were canyons in which so many things were hidden. Yuri and Agostino, the characters in my film, live a tormented relationship of emotional dependency in which the other becomes the centre of gravity for everything, in which we begin to lose, cinematically speaking, the white balance, we start to see things with blinders on, with a telephoto camera that makes us lose the sense of scale of everything. Yuri no longer knows what his priorities are and actually puts his own health in second place. It’s the same thing that happens with drug addiction, the substance becomes the centre of everything, and those who live with it even forget to eat and wash. In my film, however, the strongest substance is love. 

In your film, the characters seem to reclaim the right to live in a different way and make no apologies for it. Normality, social integration, are goals they firmly reject. What is your position in this regard?
Thank you so much for asking this question, because I was afraid that my film would be wrongly interpreted due to showing a homosexual relationship that isn’t really pretty, a relationship in which darkness seems to absorb the light. At the same time, this darkness was also my strong point, a way to say that what we live isn’t linked to sexual identity or gender but rather to relational identity. The darkness affects everyone. What I’m interested in exploring is the concept of relational identity, who we are, what we are. As for marginality, one of my favourite films, even my favourite trilogy, is that of Paul Morrissey. As is the case in my film, all of Morrissey’s characters are outcasts, addicted to drugs, and to an apparently lethargic life where nothing ever happens. Morrissey observed these anti-heroes from up close, with enormous love but also without judging them and still allowing them to make mistakes. The error is valued on a filmic level, too. Morrissey does not cut out anything because errors and imperfections are what make us human.  

What does being an Italian artist mean today? Can we speak of a young generation of “independent” Italian artists who assert their own dissident voice?
It makes me very happy to be included in this artistic movement, among people I respect and am close to. But I am part of the world of cinema and defining what is an independent film is difficult. I am convinced that the director has to be independent. Even if a film is produced, like mine, by a big production company, the director must maintain their own artistic independence. As for Italy, although it is perhaps harder for directors to emerge today, I must say that I have no desire to leave. When I ask myself why I haven’t chosen London or Berlin as my adoptive city, for example, my response is that they already face certain problems, which they transcribe through art, and they possess a cultural particularity that allows them to do it very well. I am thinking, for example, of Matt Lambert. It is precisely because such voices are too few in Italy that I believe it is important to stay and fight to make them heard.