#FILM
“La Confessione” by Giuseppe D’Angella and Simone D’Alessandro (2022)
The slow, erratic movement of a camera-car plunges into the darkness of a desolate country road, desperately searching for a landmark amid the dense nighttime vegetation. A slight coolness gently envelops the atmosphere, while darkness is broken with difficulty by the dim light of low beams. Then, suddenly, darkness. The first images of La Confessione – a short film directed by Giuseppe D’Angella and Simone D’Alessandro – specify from the outset what the main themes addressed in the work will be: a narrative marked by light and shadow, by the difficulty of distinguishing good from evil, and by the desire to separate faith from opportunism.
At the center of the story is Don Luca, a young priest born in the province who is about to take up the legacy of the more experienced Don Oreste, about to become a bishop. A quiet evening accompanies the happy event, until a tragic and unexpected event turns the existence of the two protagonists upside down. The narrative proceeds in fragments, alternating the present – in which everything seems to resolve itself without consequence – with sporadic flashbacks; very thin splinters of memory resurface uncontrollably, stubbornly, testifying to an unbearable memory, all too oppressive to be lightly forgotten.
The young priest’s inner dialogue confronts the contradictions of an entire society, characterized by selfishness and hypocrisy, by surrender and oblivion. Hidden behind the mask of faith, “the confession” of the title is nothing but a moral dilemma, a mental journey that allows the protagonist to relive his past, to reevaluate the difficult choices he has made. It is not always legitimate to sacrifice something in order to achieve a goal, for an ephemeral happiness is bound to fade in a short time, like the faint tolling of a bell that fades into the distance.
– Emidio Sciamanna