A film "for those who love sweets"

There are many reasons why the film "Don Giovanni" by Carmelo Bene (1970) is worth watching.
First of all because it is a baroque jewel and secondly because of the eclecticism that characterizes it.
We could say that in the analysis of this work we could move on the so-called thousand Deleuzian planes.
To fully feel all the moods that emerge from watching this film, we must first distinguish the various levels through which the poetics of the myth of Don Giovanni according to Carmelo Bene unfolds and is expressed and its multiple cultural references.
The first and most obvious, as already mentioned, is the baroque in its varied range of colors and gloom.
Some scenes of the film are so colorful and swirling that they seem like a cheerful parade, so much so that Vittorio Bodini in his tribute to the film defines it as a work that will only please those who like sweets. This is because the chromaticism of some frames and the specific presence of very colorful food can only recall some typical regional Italian dishes such as the Sicilian cassata.
The gloom of the atmosphere is already given by the setting, the tiny house of Carmelo Bene which is located in the Aventine area of ​​Rome. The end and beginning of the film as well as the scene in which the little girl played by Gea Marotta plays a silent piano that produces no sound are the topoi of baroque art in all its forms. The initial quote taken from Borges regarding mirrors, as well as the pictorial, theatrical and mystical references that characterize him, are fans of this unique baroque work on film. Mozart's Don Giovanni which resonates in the incipit which is superimposed by the images of Madamine's catalog (Lydia Mancinelli) and the voice-over of Bene himself who narrates the story taken from the story, "The most beautiful tale of Don Giovanni" by Jules Amedeé Barbey D'Aurevilly are already peculiar in expressing the uniqueness of this film. As we have already said, mysticism is the supporting structure of the work and its atmospheres.
We must distinguish the positive theology embodied by the little girl, tormentor and protagonist of the story who tells rosaries and whispers prayers accompanied by sweet Verdi arias from the negative one symbolized by the figure of Don Giovanni and the myth of him. The scene in which he tries to attract and disturb the little girl at the same time through the representation of a theater of Sicilian marionettes/puppets staging Pinocchio is, in this sense, also significant for the fact that at the end of this theater within the theater Don himself Giovanni finds himself tied, entangled and crucified by the wires with which he moved the puppets, ending up composing the pose of a Saint Sebastian/Christ.
This scene also opens up to the discussion of another theme dear to Carmelo Bene, the woman-child who ascribes herself to the figure of the child and the mother (Lydia Mancinelli).
The first symbolizes her childhood, her wickedness and naivety while the second symbolizes the goodness of the love that a mother can feel for a daughter. The ambivalence of the woman and the little girl is therefore to be attributed to these two figures but one must reverse the sign of the other. In fact, in the work it is Lydia Mancinelli who has the characters and movements of a child while the child possesses the firmness of character and the mystical ardor typical of adults. All this is expressed by the disturbing scene during which Don Giovanni stages a livid outburst peppered with slaps, screams and shouts characterized by the strong chromatic and luminescent aspect given by the chromatic contrast between the food and drinks on the table and the dark and obscure atmospheres and locations of the set.
The key to understanding the film is to be found in the binary nature of the woman-child which allows us to reveal Don Giovanni's ambivalence, a fact which allows us to destroy his specularity and figure.
Characteristic in this opinion is the final scene of the film which recalls the slightly previous frame which symbolizes the annihilation of the image, a synthesis of Benian iconoclastic poetics.
Finally I would like to underline how Carmelo Bene managed to make a film that is and presents itself as a baroque jewel with a strong and intense aesthetic impact like this one with few means of economic and artistic production and how in the end it is always simplicity of the poor but more direct and effective means available to make a work unforgettable in history that is worth seeing several times not only to appreciate it but also to analyze and study it to treasure it to revive the fortunes of contemporary Italian cinema. This is because, in the words of Schopenhauer, "It is not necessary to produce masterpieces but to be masterpieces".
Carmelo Bene - Don Giovanni (1970)