L'Incanto

About this movie

On August 1st, 2023, Milan's historic Odeon cinema-a true Art Nouveau architectural gem in the heart of the city-closed its doors forever. The last film to be screened was Greta Gerwig's Barbie. In its place, after demolition, yet another luxury boutique will arise. Perhaps a supermarket. Perhaps yet another urban heterotopia, unable to reconcile with it, and for it, popular passions, social life, and cultural gathering. The city seems incapable of reacting to this kind of dispossession, with culture once again falling victim to unbridled capitalism eager to swiftly devour the places of the soul. The August atmosphere certainly does not encourage the will for a tangible awakening of awareness. And yet, all the major Italian media outlets speak of the event and sing the praises of the 'great beauty' embodied by the Odeon cinema. Tomaso Pessina takes us by the hand on a journey through his dearest family memories, which are at once a memoir of the lost architecture of his city-the Odeon cinema in Milan-and an excursus on the cinemas of Pupi Avati. A door left delicately ajar onto tenderness, melancholy, remembrance, but also the magical, the miraculous, the enchanting. Through a kaleidoscope of animations, testimonies, and scenes from films, woven together by the invisible yet persistent thread of memory, the narrative unfolds as the story of a soul-that of the city itself, of Pupi Avati's filmography, and, in its most spontaneous and authentic act of identity, of the director himself.

Customer Reviews