Caverna
Waiting on the shore as the waters lap against the rocks sits a monster, watching with one eye, a cyclops which exists on the edge of society, of awareness, ready to pursue those who come too close, capturing and subduing them, taking them away into the dark cave of the subconscious, a fearful thing created and given life by those who dare to look inside.
An acting workshop led by Alba, she encourages her students to recall their childhoods and process their emotions through their work, to describe their dreams, while after the long hours the performers drink and smoke and party in the Tuscan countryside by the pool, dressing up as different characters, considering each other and themselves, their hopes and their rivalries.
An abstract film written and directed by Hannah Swayze and Daniel Contaldo filmed in the hills around Florence, the focus of Caverna is Giorgia and Lorenzo (Giorgia Tomasi and Lorenzo Passaniti), recalling contrived memories of church and cigarettes and death and dreams of giant roses and still larger worms in the workshops, encouraged by Alba (Caterina Fornaciai) who symbolically burns the script.
The images of their childhoods flashing up, their younger selves (Rebecca and Edoardo Braghieri) enjoying days of sunshine, playing among the flowers and cacti around the villa or with goats on the farm, Alba encourages them to go to the darkest places of their mind and lose control, presumably represented by the cavern and the cyclops, Giorgia afraid she will disappoint her classically trained parents, that she’s imperfect, not beautiful enough to become successful.
The stage of the rehearsal room another place where they create fictions outside of reality, lost in smoke and bathed in light, Alba’s process is something between therapy and theatre, connecting thoughts, feelings and behaviour, reacting with delight when Giorgia confesses that she is having visions, saying this will make her an amazing actor, but while the fractured start, stop and jumping tracks may resemble how some directors operate, without context the work is not engaging.
More about the process than the end product, about the journey into the shadow than what is found there, Caverna is at best pretentious and indulgent and at worst dull and meandering, Alba’s vision as monocular as the cyclops, declaring “the true performer paints with the eyes of the mind” and explaining that “we wear masks to conceal the emotions we feel,” but with no structure the feeling is art for the sake of art, meaningless without a connection to the audience.
Caverna will be streaming on the Arrow platform from Friday 21st March
