Chi ha lottato con l'angelo resta fosforescente

Overview

In 1990 poet Maria Luisa Spaziani (Turin, 1922 - Rome, 2014) published one of her more experimental works, the poem in heroic verse "Giovanna d’Arco" (Joan of Arc). One of the distinctive elements of the book is the invention of a language: Joan speaks with an angel, who addresses her in a non-existent language. The angel who embodies such voice is, for Spaziani, poetry itself, that is, that force that constantly presses the boundaries of language and the speakable, deforming such boundaries, revealing glimmers of unexplored areas of pure voice. The film features images of sea landscapes and a series of audio recordings of fire, two elements that constantly recur in the path Spaziani traces along the trajectory of her enunciation.