Director: Augusto De Girolamo Del Mauro
Writer: Augusto De Girolamo Del Mauro
Cast (includes): Francesco Mauriello, Alessio D’Ambrosi
Running time: 50mins
Of all the great monotheistic religions, only Christianity has a woman as an integral part of their original revelation of the divine. It was the genius of the Papacy to later, in the early middle ages, elevate the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God to the key position as intercessor between human beings and the deity. Shia Islam, particularly during the time of the Fatimid caliphate, made some half-hearted efforts at female inclusion with the promotion of the Prophet’s daughter Fatima; yet their promotion was to reverence not to worship.
So, among Christian believers, the Virgin Mary, the Madonna, is a very big deal indeed. One particular manifestation of the Madonna is at the heart of Girolamo Del Mauro’s moving and beautifully crafted quasi-documentary Pagani: A Festival That Never Dies. The film depicts an annual Easter festival in celebration of the Madonna held in the small Italian city of Pagani, situated in the Campania, on the southward side of Mount Vesuvius from Naples.
Pagani appears to be a hard-scrabble kind of place – dominated by 20th century concrete high rise apartment buildings which crowd in on a nondescript Baroque church. However, as the movie develops, the director asks us to see the city as a marvel not for its physical appearance but for the vitality, beauty and dignity of its citizens as they unite together to organise and then sumptuously enjoy their festival.
I use the term quasi-documentary as Girolamo Del Mauro informs us in an opening caption that the film is ‘based on a true story’. Amongst the documentary cinema verité footage of the festival in action, the director intercuts a narrative using Pagani residents voicing scripted lines to explore their feelings as to the festival which as a veneration of the Madonna is inextricably entwined with their religious faith.
The movie is very much a family affair. The director’s two brothers are credited, and the production company is the Girolamo Del Mauro Brothers. One gets the feeling that the residents/actors are friends of or known to the director. The director deploys the interior monologue of the film’s central protagonist, Francesco, played beautifully and credibly by Francesco Mauriello, as the film’s narrator. The device works extremely well.
The screenplay is well thought out. Early on, a child asks her grandmother as to the origins of the festival. By chance one of the festival’s lead singers, overhears and tells the child and us the audience how it all came about.
Some hens were scratching in the dirt and unearthed an image of the Madonna which had been hidden for safekeeping. The image was taken into the church and proceeded to work miracle cures and the cult of the Madonna and the festival were born. The Madonna became known as Madonna della Galline – the Madonna of the Hens. Charmingly and magically, birds play a big part in the festivities. When the statue of the Madonna is brought from the church – doves fly from a cage up to the heavens. During the church service a couple of hens add their voices to those of the worshippers. Bizarrely, in the midst of the crowd, we glimpse someone carrying a male peacock, nonchalant in all its finery.
The filmmakers provide a sub-plot to drive the narrative forward. We learn that the lead character Francesco is going through a crisis of grief and is worried about not feeling able to take part in the festival. In some beautifully evoked scenes, a Wise Child comes to support him and encourage him to get up there and take part. We come to realise that the boy, owlish in big glasses, is Francesco’s younger self – played in a wonderful performance by Alessio D’Ambrosi.
One of the screenplay’s strengths is that it makes us think for ourselves – the source of Francesco’s grief is never made explicit. Again, we work out through allusion that Francesco’s mother must have recently died. At times, I felt that for a grown man (Francesco appears to be thirty something) his displays of grief for his mother were somewhat excessive. But then I reflected on my own experience, my mother died in advanced old age, and what it must be like to lose your mother in early adulthood. The scenes brought to my mind John Lennon’s stark meditation on the subject – My Mummy’s Dead.
Francesco bucks up and gives himself up to the festival and sings his heart out.
The format of the festival is simple. The statue of the Madonna and Child, all ghastly bondieuserie with the mother and child blinged up wearing gold crowns, is taken from the church and paraded through the streets of Pagani.
In a set of exquisitely filmed and edited scenes we see the crowds building up and we come to palpably feel their excitement and their joy. A team of video operators are credited, and they did a superb job. Anyone who has tried to take a decent photo at a festival or a demo will appreciate their achievement. The scale of the crowds is well caught by some great drone footage which pans out across the city to the Campania and the brooding mass of Vesuvius on the horizon.
A highlight of the film for your reviewer was the way the director portrayed the emergence of the statue from the church. We are shown the crowd outside pressing up against the great wooden doors. Girolamo Del Mauro then cuts to a shot from the inside of the church – we see a man, presumably Francesco, viewed from behind standing in front of the doors. The doors open and the figure is bathed in sunlight. It is a moment of high drama and of resolution – the apotheosis of Francesco – as if the door to the church truly is Jesus Christ.
The Pagani festival would be nothing without its music. And what music it is. I am a newcomer to Campanian folk music. The rhythm is provided by masses of tambourines which many of the festival goers flourish, accordions soar above the rhythm section. The feel is hypnotic and reminded me of qawwali, the Sufi devotional music, with a hint of Cajun spice. The music is the backdrop to the whirling folk dance known as the Tarantella performed with the dancers playing castanets.
There are uniformed dance troupes, but the most beautifully frenzied dancing is that of festival goers in civvies who would put a punk mosh pit to shame. The filmmakers recruited Bruno Falanga, an experienced film composer to coordinate the music. Falanga gives us his own ethereal electro-ambience music which he melds beautifully and seamlessly with the driving rhythms of the Tarantella. The soundtrack is a triumph – one of best I have heard in a long time.
The only flaw I found in the movie was that, in the otherwise brilliant, editing the screen on several occasions cuts to pure black. I presume this was done to highlight the transition between different episodes, but for me it jarred. A small thing compared to the attention to detail otherwise demonstrated throughout the movie.
There is a wonderful example at the very end of the movie. Falanga found a tremendous torch ballad for the soundtrack to the end credits. As the last embers of the song die down, a film spool appears on the black screen, the spool then magically spirals away to form the B of the Girolamo Del Mauro Brothers’ logo. Beautifully crafted – an object lesson for indy filmmakers in how to engage an audience with something so quotidian as a film’s end credits.
So exhilarating and immersive was the experience of watching this movie, on occasion I found myself thinking of how successfully seductive the filmmakers’ approach had become. There is a scene the morning after the festival in limpid sunlight where Francesco is walking in the street holding his tambourine. He walks past a young boy. He stops and goes back to the kid and hands him the tambourine. He asks him to play the tambourine for many years and tells us that way the festival never dies. If I had been watching an industry blockbuster, my reaction would no doubt have been to puke but I found myself nodding and saying to myself – yeah that’s cool.
Lest readers think that my review has been compromised by a turn to religiosity, let me assure you that I am and remain a flint-hearted child of the Enlightenment – I have not sold myself to God.
That said, as an exploration of faith and a celebration of a community united in a common purpose, A Festival That Never Dies is a remarkable piece of work. I am sure that the piece will endure as a historical text in the life of Pagani and beyond. The film deserves to do great things on the festival circuit. And all on a budget of 10,000 euros. Do try and catch this movie.
In the submission notes, I see that Girolamo Del Mauro has made one movie prior to A Festival That Never Dies. I would look forward to seeing more work from the team in the future. Keep an eye out for the Girolamo Del Mauro Brothers.
