Unknown Paths – Raiders of Lear’s Landscapes
Unknown Paths – Raiders of Lear's Landscapes Trailer from Davide Morabito on Vimeo.
Unknown Paths is a road movie about prejudice and diversity. Following in spirit and general direction the journey of the famous English landscape painter and poet Edward Lear, who creates nonsense poetry. Lear was very sensitive about prejudice, he suffered of asthma and epilepsy and, during Victorian era, this disease was considered like demonic possession. Correctness was a special Victorian scourge, and it worried Lear as much as anyone else. His limericks are little masterpieces of the unexpected letdown. They are predicaments without stuffy morals attached. Lear creates, in nonsense poetry, strange and eccentric characters full of shortcomings. But he accepts his characters as they are, freeing himself and his readers from their own shortcomings. Despite a physical handicap and an enthusiasm for self-depreciation, he was a persistent self-improver. True humor is sensibility in the most deepest sense; but it is the sport of sensibility; wholesome and perfect therefore; as it where, the playful, teasing fondness of a mother to her child. When we read the journal of Lear’s travel in Calabria we recognize the shortcomings of the controversial land we were born and grow up. A borderland that is a bridge between Europe and Africa, a controversial land where human contradictions stand in its light and shade and in its contrasts: the fear of diversity, mistrust, hatred, revenge, the human tide “foreign” which comes from the South. With the narrator Hassani Shapi, a Kenyan actor naturalized British, we will meet 12 characters during our journey; a mosaic of feelings and human conditions and we will try to see the shortcomings of our life with Lear’s lightness and the poetic vision.
Produced by: DMPA and Mint Pictures
Directed by: Davide Morabito and Fabio Itri
Narrated by: Hassani Shapi
Unknown Paths è un road movie sul pregiudizio. Il film indende ripercorrere il cammino in Calabria del celebre pittore e poeta vittoriano Edward Lear, creatore della poesia nonsense. Lear era molto sensibile sul pregiudizio, soffriva di epilessia e, in epoca vittoriana, questa malattia era considerata come possessione demoniaca. Egli crea, nella poesia nonsense, strani ed eccentrici personaggi pieni di difetti, ma Lear accetta i suoi personaggi così come sono, liberando se stesso e i suoi lettori dalle proprie mancanze. Quando abbiamo letto il diario di viaggio di Lear in Calabria abbiamo riconosciuto i difetti e le mancanze della terra in cui siamo nati e cresciuti. Una terra considerata oggi come allora selvaggia e pericolosa. Con il narratore Hassani Shapi, incontreremo 12 personaggi durante il nostro viaggio ed ogni personaggio è legato al pregiudizio, all’immigrazione e alla xenofobia e cercheremo di vedere le mancanze della nostra vita con la leggerezza e la visione poetica di Edward Lear.
