Il Sogno di Campaldino
Illustrated film and theater screenplay
By Giovanni Enrico Arrighini
Associazione Città Infinite - Via delle Conce, 10 - lucca 55100 C.F. / P.IVA 02250360464 - info@ilsognodicampaldino.it
Synopsis
E' pane preso in prestito
la vita: oh, renderlo
potessi e dire grazie...
(Giuseppe Cordoni)
The dream of a patient on his last day of internment in the Washington DC criminal asylum in 1958, transports us from the island of San Michele on the Venice lagoon to the plain of Campaldino in 1289, where the poet Dante Alighieri is deploying to the front line of the Florentine army.
Through the stories of the fantastic character of Eliseo, we cross the river Arno on the raft guided by a guy who has sold his soul to the devil; in the horror of war we meet the dying knight Buonconte di Montefeltro and the memory of the massacre of Montaperti.
The vain Vieri dei Cerchi saves Eliseo from hanging and accompanies him together with the knight of the Adimari to the convent of Certamondo, where the wounded of the battle are piled up. In the cloister the protagonist of the dream is finally reunited with 'his creator', while in the background we hear the prayer of the Virgin recited by a surreal voice in Chinese.
In the finale, with the patient's farewell to the director of the Asylum, the feminine element that appears in the double vision of Pound's 'Francesca' and Dante's, reveals to us the only way, dreamed and loved, to glimpse a glimmer of light "through a dark forest".