The walls of Sana'a

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title The walls of Sana'a
Original title Le mura di Sana'a
Country of production Italy
original language Italian
Publishing year 1971/74
length 14 minutes
Rod
Director Pier Paolo Pasolini
script Pier Paolo Pasolini
production Franco Rossellini
camera Tonino Delli Colli
cut Tatiana Casini Morigi

The Walls of Sana'a (Original title: Le mura di Sana'a ) is a short documentary film by the Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini from 1971 . It is subtitled Documentary in the form of an appeal to UNESCO ( Documentario in forma di un appello all'UNESCO ) .

content

The film is a passionate appeal to UNESCO to take sides against the destruction of Sana'a's historic old town . Long stretches of the shot were shot with a handheld camera , and Pasolini himself speaks the commentary on the pictures from the off .

It begins with a description and analysis of the political situation in North Yemen , in which an eight-year, bloody civil war between royalists and republicans had just ended in 1970 with the victory of the republican side. The country was economically weak and began to rebuild with Chinese help. You can also see pictures of the construction of a new road to the capital Sana'a, which until then had been largely closed off and difficult to reach. Pasolini describes the spirit of optimism, the desire for modernization and progress, but this desire is "imported" by the new, democratic elite and the traditionally oriented society accepts this without articulating itself.

The old town of Sana'a

The camera switches to Sana'a and shows the first appearance of industrial consumer goods in the city. Progress through consumption is a naive notion, and Yemen is too poor to really participate. Then Pasolini juxtaposes the first official buildings (“new and poor”) of the modern state with the old Sana'a: After introducing the parliament, some ministries and the national bank, the commentary is silent for two minutes while the camera is still almost completely explored the preserved old town with its spectacular clay architecture . Sana'a is of almost mystical beauty and purity and, albeit of a more rural character, can be compared with Venice , Urbino , Prague or Amsterdam . The new Yemeni elite, however, are ashamed of the dirt and poverty and have secretly decided to destroy the old town.

The film now jumps to Italy to show that this destruction of history is taking place worldwide and also in post-war Italy. It shows the destruction of the (cultural) landscape by building measures using the example of the medieval town of Orte in northern Rome. Pasolini discusses it with passers-by.

The city gate Bab al-Yaman

The last two minutes of the film are a direct appeal by Pasolini to UNESCO. It shows the first destruction of the historic city wall, which had to give way to new buildings. It is too late for Italy, but here in Yemen the destruction can still be averted: “We appeal to UNESCO to help Yemen avert the destruction that began with the destruction of the walls of Sana'a. We appeal to UNESCO to help Yemen to find its identity and to become aware of the value of this country. We appeal to UNESCO to give this country the opportunity to recognize that it is one of the wonders of mankind and to help it preserve it. We appeal to UNESCO, now that it is not too late, to intervene and convince the ruling class that Yemen's only treasure lies in its beauty, and to preserve it is, first of all, an economic resource that costs nothing. Yemen still has the time to avoid the mistakes of other countries. "

reception

Pasolini was aware of the limited chances of his appeal: “I had no illusions that UNESCO would react to the film I directed to them. But maybe there is another way to get something moving. ”When UNESCO began an international campaign to conserve and restore Sana'a in 1984, it was actually Italy that took the lead in implementing one of the pilot projects. An official delegation with Romano Prodi , then director of the IRI , representatives of the Ministry of Culture and the Fondo Pier Paolo Pasolini presented a copy of the Mura di Sana'a to the director of the project in an official ceremony in 1988 . The cultural significance of the old town of Sana'a is undisputed today, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988 and has been extensively restored since then.

production

The film was made in October 1970 in Sana'a and Hadramaut Province in Yemen . The first version of the film was broadcast on television by the RAI on February 16, 1971 ; the premiere of the final version in the cinema took place on June 20, 1974 in Milan on the occasion of the premiere of the Erotic Stories from 1001 Nights . The film did not go into commercial distribution .

Pasolini shot the documentary on leftover footage while filming Decameron in Sana'a in October 1970; the scenes shot for this film in Yemen, the story of the Alibek , were later not used in the Decameron . Probably because of this, and because of the joint presentation with the Erotic Stories , it is occasionally stated that the film was made during the shooting of this film, some of which also took place in Sana'a, but only two and a half years later from March to May 1973.

The scenes from Le mura di Sana'a , which are set in Italy, were not included in the original version from 1971, but were only subsequently added to the final version shown in Milan in 1974. They were formed in winter 1973 for the TV documentary Pasolini e ... la forma della città of RAI , in which they were not used.

Pasolini e… la forma della città (1973/74)

In the series IO e… (ICH and…) of the RAI, prominent artists and cultural workers presented works of art in Italy and explained, mostly in interviews, their meaning from a personal point of view. In the last article in the series, Pasolini took up the subject of the Mura di Sana'a again in relation to Italy, but intensified it and used it for a radical political statement. In terms of content, the television report is thus close to the simultaneous journalistic articles and polemics in the print media , which were published in 1975 in the anthology of the privateer writings ( Scritti corsari ).

Pasolini and ... the shape of the city represents the small towns of Orte in the north, about 90 km from Rome, and Sabaudia in the south-west on the coast. Pasolini had a close personal relationship with both cities: in the small hamlet of Chia near Orte he had already discovered an abandoned medieval tower in the early 1960s, which he bought in 1970 and had it renovated. In the 1970s, Pasolini increasingly withdrew to Chia, where large parts of Petrolio were written (fragment of the novel, published posthumously in 1992). In Sabaudia, Alberto Moravia rented a summer house on the beach in the summer months, where Pasolini and his mother also spent a lot of time.

content

View of Places Today (2011)

In contrast to Le mura di Sana'a , Pasolini himself is in the picture with La forma della città and is aimed directly at the television audience, there is no interviewee. Sometimes standing next to the camera, sometimes framing the image with the camera , he presents the medieval backdrop of places and tries to arouse an understanding of the relationship between the historical place and its surroundings, complains about the impairment of the view through insensitively placed, mediocre buildings . This problem, he explains, is not an Italian one, but a global one, and reports the destruction and threats to centuries-old cities such as Yazd in Persia, Sana'a in Yemen or Bhaktapur in Nepal in the name of superficial modernism and the demonstration of state progress. The film also shows excerpts from Le mura di Sana'a and pictures from Nepal.

The contribution returns to Italy: In Orte the impairments are still moderate, but the situation in Italy, the shape of many other cities in Italy is “no longer salvable and extremely catastrophic.” Using the example of an old historical road to Orte, he tries to explain that the protection of cultural landscapes and architectural ensembles is just as important as the preservation of outstanding works of art, because they reflect the achievements and the history of the people.

In a tough section of the contribution to the windy, wintry beach at changes Sabaudia , one in 1934 as part of the redevelopment of the Pontine plain in Fascist Italy , founded planned city . Pasolini looks at Sabaudia from a dune: Certainly the fascist architecture is ridiculous from an intellectual point of view, and yet when he now looks at this city, there is nothing unreal or ridiculous there, the "imperial" gesture has become over the years to the rationalism Facility gave way, which shows that it was built for real people who lived their normal lives there with their families. Despite its fascist forms, architecture has its roots in rural, pre-industrial Italy. In fact, fascism (“nothing more than a group of criminals in power”) never managed to put its cultural stamp on Italy, did not even scratch the surface of Italian culture.

The camera approaches Pasolini and finally shows his face in close-up: Today, however, the opposite is happening: the government is now democratic, but the consumer world , which is only guided by individual interests, is leveling out all cultural differences, cutting people off from their historically grown traditions and thus destroying them fundamentally the Italian culture. The real fascism lies in the rules of this consumer society. It is a nightmare to see how quickly Italy has been destroyed in the last five, seven, ten years, a nightmare that one now wakes up to to find that nothing can be done. Pasolini turns around abruptly and walks towards the sea with his back to the camera.

production

The series IO e… was produced from 1972 to 1974 by Radiotelevisione Italiana in 31 episodes, Anna Zanoli was responsible for the concept of the series. The directed Pasolini e ... la forma della città led Paolo Brunatto , a renowned documentary and experimental filmmaker, camera and editing took Mario Gianni and Franca di Lorenzo. The 17-minute long program was last broadcast on February 7, 1974.

In view of the content and form of the film, the question of the author arises. In the interview, Pasolini himself speaks of a documentary that he made for television. With regard to the content, there should be no doubt about Pasolini as the author, but the television report also corresponds formally to comparable works by Pasolini, such as the site visits in Palestine (1963) or the notes on an African oresty (1969). Another advantage of Pasolini as an author is the mutual adoption of individual sequences in the other film. In his analysis Roberto Chiesi therefore comes to the conclusion that the film should be classified as Pasolini's work, which was realized with the (technical) support of Brunatto, a sensitive and prudent director who was able to understand Pasolini's point of view and implement it responsibly.

literature

  • Piero Spila: Pier Paolo Pasolini. Gremese, Rome 2002, cf. Pp. 112-114.
  • Friends of the Deutsche Kinemathek (Ed., Editor: Michael Hanisch): Pier Paolo Pasolini. Documents on the reception of his films in German-language film reviews 1963–1985. Berlin 1994, pp. 163-64 (based on: Pier Paolo Pasolini - Le regole di un'illusione. Rome 1991, ed. Laura Betti and Michele Gulinucci for the Fondo Pier Paolo Pasolini ).
  • Pier Paolo Pasolini. (= Film series. Vol. 12). Third, significantly expanded edition. Edited in collaboration with the Deutsche Kinemathek Foundation . Hanser, Munich 1985, cf. Pp. 192-93.
  • Leonardo Ciacci: Pasolini: Inadvertent Town Planner. In: Multimedia for Urban Planning: An Exploration of the Next Frontier. Edited by Leonie Sandercock and Giovanni Attili. Springer Netherlands 2010, pp. 10-12 (English).
  • Roberto Chiesi: Lo sguardo di Pasolini. La forma della città . In: parol. Quaderni d'arte e di epistemologia . 1998 (Italian, accessed February 11, 2012).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The quote follows the English subtitles of the DVD Medea. Le mura di Sana'a. (RaroVideo 2005, EAN 8019547400060)
  2. ↑ Pasolini in an interview with Robert Schär, in: Cinéma 2: 1976, quoted from: Deutsche Kinemathek: Pier Paolo Pasolini. Documents. 1994, p. 164
  3. ^ Piero Spila: Pier Paolo Pasolini. 2002, p. 114
  4. ↑ for the production details see: Deutsche Kinemathek: Pier Paolo Pasolini. Documents. 1994, p. 163
  5. ↑ see: Deutsche Kinemathek: Pier Paolo Pasolini. Documents. 1994, p. 146 on Decameron
  6. ↑ For example with Nico Naldini: Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1991, p. 317. The film can, however, be dated to 1970 because of the mourning flags shown in the film for Nasser, who had died a few weeks earlier .
  7. ^ Enzo Siciliano : Pasolini. Life and work. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-596-25643-7 , p. 452
  8. ^ Enzo Siciliano: Pasolini. Life and work. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1985, pp. 489, 492
  9. ↑ " La situazione dell'Italia, delle forme delle città nella nazione italiana (...) è decisamente irrimediabile e catastrofica. ”
  10. ↑ “ il fascismo, il regime fascista non è stato altro, in conclusion, che un group di criminali al potere ”
  11. ↑ The version available on Youtube is just under 17 minutes long, including opening and closing credits , the IMDb specifies 20 minutes. The credits also contain information about the camera and editing.
  12. ↑ " Io ho fatto un documentario su questo alla televisione: un pezzettino è inserito in Le mura di Sana'a . ”Interview with Gideon Bachmann in Chia, September 13, 1974, quoted from Roberto Chiesi: Lo sguardo di Pasolini. La forma della città. 1998
  13. ↑ “ … un'opera cinematografica di Pasolini, sia pure realizzata con l'apporto reattivo di un regista sensibile e attento come Brunatto, entrato spontaneamente in sintonia con le idee pasoliniane. ”, Roberto Chiesi: Lo sguardo di Pasolini. La forma della città. 1998.