Umano non umano AKA Human, Not Human (1972)
By Mario Schifano
Human not human is not only the best Italian "experimental" film of the 60's, but also one of the richest and most involving documents of "cinema of protest". - Lino Miccichè Schifano's cinema is, as his paintings, spontaneous and gesture-based, quickly objectifying the world, and at the same time deeply thougth-out, and progresses by building up pictures and sounds. Dissolves and pulsing images of television broadcasts plunge us in a completely unstable state of vision, allowing the author to avoid choosing, including in the same space different visions and distant, fragmentary, expanded timeframes. If anything, the choice is left to the viewer and, from this point of view, "Human not human" becomes almost an interactive film, one that needs to be mentally rebuilt. "Human not human" is introduced by an art critic (Calvesi), who speaks about ancient painting as "an alchemic attempt to reproduce the misyery of life by bringing matter to life using light". According to Schifano, cinema is the real art of painting, because it has the same alchemic power to bring matter to life. "Human not human", a film where words, and especially gestures, are constantly frozen, cancelled, deforme…
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