"From the trench to Dada" ([see message 738-739] Orion books, copyright Barbarossa, 18 euros,
4:3, edited by Maurizio Murelli) is the first of a series of ten DVDs on Evola. It can be assumed
that the publication of the nine other DVDs will depend more or less on the sales of the first.
It is an amateurish documentary, a commendable initiative, but with limited means (the
soundtrack is in mono and the sound level has ups and downs), and it has only Italian subtitles.
There are theatre actors howling selected sentences by Evola (voices with many echo
effects): "Life - like an arc ; the mind - like a dart ; the target to pierce - the supreme spirit
; to join to this spirit as the shot arrow hits its target" - "fidelity is stronger than fire",
"standing among the ruins", "choosing the hardest path", etc.
An off-screen feminine voice is now there to remind us of the statements by Evola against
materialist racism and neopagan Nazism, to which Catholicism would be even preferable...
We then see a photo of Evola as a child with his parents, but the frame is very fuzzy;
another one, of Evola in his teenage years - alone; it's better. Nothing is told about his
childhood, apart from the usual information that the family belonged to the Sicilian aristocracy.
We are then reminded of the fact that Evola is considered as a racist and as a political
ideologist, while he is underestimated as poet, painter, philosopher, expert in symbols.
Then, there is an interview with a Jew, a certain Coen, who tells us about how difficult it
was to dress a 190 cm tall man who, by then, was as skinny as a skeleton, and to help him to seat
by the window overlooking the hill of Janus (Janiculum), which he wanted to contemplate as he was
dying. The difficulty came from the fact - he says - that he was the only man there, with three
women. Why are we told that the only man there was a Jewish man? Is it to show that Evola had no
prejudice against them? No details are supplied on those women, but there are grounds for thinking
that the first was Maria Antonietta Fiumara, Evola's secretary and executrix, the second his Swiss
governess, and the third is unknown to me.
We are told that no far relatives showed up, and that they refused to become the owners of the
copyrights of Evola's work, not to be associated in any way with the figure of the 'forbidden
philosopher'.
We are then told that the body was cremated in Spoleto one whole month after his death and the
ashes buried two months and a half after, since cremation was still illegal in Italy, and for the
same reason nobody knew the content of the urn and the identity of the man whose ashes it
contained, including the guides, Arturo and Renzo Squinobal, put in charge by Evola's old fellow
alpinist, Eugenio David, of the actual cremation, together with Renato Del Ponte, and of putting
down the mysterious 'object' in a crevasse of the Lyskamm glacier (massif of Monte Rosa) at 4538
m. height, on the Italian side bordering the German-speaking Swiss canton (more precisely between
the Hill of Scoperta and the one of Lys). Some rare photos of the event (by Del Ponte) are showed.
Then, we are showed a film about a group of pals who, on the thirtieth anniversary of his
death, reached a place theoretically located near the burial place, where they buried a rune,
while giving the Roman salute. At this point, an unintentional Dadaist event occurs : in the film,
Renato Del Ponte is constantly called Dal Ponte by the off-screen voice, while, in the captions,
he's addressed alternatively as Dal Ponte and Del Ponte, so much so that he could himself very
well begin to have some doubt about his true family name...
After some excerpts from 'Il Cammino del Cinabro', mostly about the short experience of the
front, illustrated with archives black and white images of the 1924-1928 war, are recited, we are
showed an interview in which the elderly Evola speaks - in French, with Italian subtitles - about
Tristan Tzara and the Dada movement. Following which we no longer hear of Evola for quite a while,
since the DVD then focuses on works and interviews concerning only Dada. This helps filling the
gaps.
Finally, there is a reading of the poem 'La parole obscure du paysage intérieur' by four
off-screen voices while the text scrolls on the screen, together with the presentation of 42
abstract paintings by Evola. This affected chaos, seasoned by quite hectic "techno" music (by
Ain Soph, Kaiserbund, Kryptonite, etc..), is meant, I presume, to render the spirit of Dada. As a
feminine voice recites this part of the poem which deals with Lilac, three naive feminine nudes
painted by Evola, interspersed with 'live 'images of moving breasts, are showed. No comment.
In conclusion, there is a modern kaleidoscopic portrait of an anti-modern man. Let's wish that the
other DVDs of this series will be better, and, at least, will avoid this soundtrack for
teenagers...
4:3, edited by Maurizio Murelli) is the first of a series of ten DVDs on Evola. It can be assumed
that the publication of the nine other DVDs will depend more or less on the sales of the first.
It is an amateurish documentary, a commendable initiative, but with limited means (the
soundtrack is in mono and the sound level has ups and downs), and it has only Italian subtitles.
There are theatre actors howling selected sentences by Evola (voices with many echo
effects): "Life - like an arc ; the mind - like a dart ; the target to pierce - the supreme spirit
; to join to this spirit as the shot arrow hits its target" - "fidelity is stronger than fire",
"standing among the ruins", "choosing the hardest path", etc.
An off-screen feminine voice is now there to remind us of the statements by Evola against
materialist racism and neopagan Nazism, to which Catholicism would be even preferable...
We then see a photo of Evola as a child with his parents, but the frame is very fuzzy;
another one, of Evola in his teenage years - alone; it's better. Nothing is told about his
childhood, apart from the usual information that the family belonged to the Sicilian aristocracy.
We are then reminded of the fact that Evola is considered as a racist and as a political
ideologist, while he is underestimated as poet, painter, philosopher, expert in symbols.
Then, there is an interview with a Jew, a certain Coen, who tells us about how difficult it
was to dress a 190 cm tall man who, by then, was as skinny as a skeleton, and to help him to seat
by the window overlooking the hill of Janus (Janiculum), which he wanted to contemplate as he was
dying. The difficulty came from the fact - he says - that he was the only man there, with three
women. Why are we told that the only man there was a Jewish man? Is it to show that Evola had no
prejudice against them? No details are supplied on those women, but there are grounds for thinking
that the first was Maria Antonietta Fiumara, Evola's secretary and executrix, the second his Swiss
governess, and the third is unknown to me.
We are told that no far relatives showed up, and that they refused to become the owners of the
copyrights of Evola's work, not to be associated in any way with the figure of the 'forbidden
philosopher'.
We are then told that the body was cremated in Spoleto one whole month after his death and the
ashes buried two months and a half after, since cremation was still illegal in Italy, and for the
same reason nobody knew the content of the urn and the identity of the man whose ashes it
contained, including the guides, Arturo and Renzo Squinobal, put in charge by Evola's old fellow
alpinist, Eugenio David, of the actual cremation, together with Renato Del Ponte, and of putting
down the mysterious 'object' in a crevasse of the Lyskamm glacier (massif of Monte Rosa) at 4538
m. height, on the Italian side bordering the German-speaking Swiss canton (more precisely between
the Hill of Scoperta and the one of Lys). Some rare photos of the event (by Del Ponte) are showed.
Then, we are showed a film about a group of pals who, on the thirtieth anniversary of his
death, reached a place theoretically located near the burial place, where they buried a rune,
while giving the Roman salute. At this point, an unintentional Dadaist event occurs : in the film,
Renato Del Ponte is constantly called Dal Ponte by the off-screen voice, while, in the captions,
he's addressed alternatively as Dal Ponte and Del Ponte, so much so that he could himself very
well begin to have some doubt about his true family name...
After some excerpts from 'Il Cammino del Cinabro', mostly about the short experience of the
front, illustrated with archives black and white images of the 1924-1928 war, are recited, we are
showed an interview in which the elderly Evola speaks - in French, with Italian subtitles - about
Tristan Tzara and the Dada movement. Following which we no longer hear of Evola for quite a while,
since the DVD then focuses on works and interviews concerning only Dada. This helps filling the
gaps.
Finally, there is a reading of the poem 'La parole obscure du paysage intérieur' by four
off-screen voices while the text scrolls on the screen, together with the presentation of 42
abstract paintings by Evola. This affected chaos, seasoned by quite hectic "techno" music (by
Ain Soph, Kaiserbund, Kryptonite, etc..), is meant, I presume, to render the spirit of Dada. As a
feminine voice recites this part of the poem which deals with Lilac, three naive feminine nudes
painted by Evola, interspersed with 'live 'images of moving breasts, are showed. No comment.
In conclusion, there is a modern kaleidoscopic portrait of an anti-modern man. Let's wish that the
other DVDs of this series will be better, and, at least, will avoid this soundtrack for
teenagers...