VOTE FOR THE GOLDEN TAKES
“A place that needs to invoke a saint is a dangerous place,” Esther, a new enigmatic character, says to Matteo about halfway through the first episode of Christian – Second season (THE SPECIAL). And Città Palazzo remains a dangerous place even after Lino’s death, indeed, perhaps it is even more so with that vacant throne on which more than one would like to sit. The second season of the Sky Original series co-produced by Sky Studios and Lucky Red in collaboration with Newen Connect, directed by Stefano Lodovichi and scripted by Valerio Cilio from an idea by Roberto “Saku” Cinardi has landed exclusively on Sky and in streaming only on Now with two first episodes that confirm the path traced with the first season and at times even seem to go further in terms of quality and attention to detail.
An epic funeral
The farewell to Lino, the boss played by Giordano De Plano in the first season, is celebrated in the opening with two scenes, a flashback set in the past that reminds us of Christian’s violent formation and the funeral sequence, which from seems to want to be from immediately a manifesto of the intentions of the authors. The scene has the epic of the great mafia films and is accompanied by the notes of Tearful by Caelus, death metal covers of Mozart’s Requiem in D minor, which make the incipit of a second season even more powerful and evocative in which the dramatic element seems to take over the comedy.
SOUNDTRACK, PHOTOGRAPHY AND EDITING
In addition to a soundtrack that is at least as protagonist as it was in the first season (Giorgio Giampà was awarded at Canneseries in 2021 precisely for the music of Christian), immediately stands out also a photograph that plays with half-light and light, underexposure and overexposure, which is enhanced in the scenes set indoors and plays with yellow tones for those outdoors. The choice of alternating editing is also effective, which in two scenes is used for narrative and meta-narrative purposes in two sequences.
RACHELE’S NIGHTMARE
Christian (Edoardo Pesce) is the gravitational center of the action. Lorenzo, Matteo’s (Claudio Santamaria) child, recovered from the disease that had made him progressively blind, goes on foot to him in the middle of the night, and Rachele (Silvia D’Amico), imprisoned in a club, cannot get away from him. addiction, dedication and devotion, in a toxic gratitude from which she frees herself only following a mystical episode, a dreamlike encounter with the mysterious man who promises to be able to help her (Klaus, the priest played by Ivan Franek), a nightmare claustrophobic and anxiety-producing staged through a convincing work of sets and special effects.
A NEW NEMESIS
The new mission of Christian, in spite of himself elected corum populi new boss of the Palazzo City, is still to be written. Biondo invites him to choose what kind of leader he wants to be while new antagonists begin to move in the background. The Nigerians, who seem to be able to offer very little resistance to the charisma of the Messiah alla matriciana (copyright by Edoardo Pesce), and a new nemesis who picks up the baton from Klaus. La Nera is a character who takes just a few minutes on stage to leave her mark, played by a superbly cold and detached Laura Morante, manipulative in her turn, who finds fertile ground in Matteo’s new doubts, upset by the effects of Christian’s miracle on psyche of little Lorenzo. She is entrusted with one of the most significant jokes of this start of the season: “You don’t know how many saints are actually abject men who have had the great fortune to die at the right moment”.
BETWEEN FREE WILL AND SENSE OF GUILT
And if free will is the central theme of the first two episodes, the storyline of Davide (Antonio Bannò), Lino’s son left orphaned and without power, is moved by the thirst for revenge and a desire for self-punishment that seem destined to make him a pawn in the game hatched by La Nera and Matteo. The line between good and evil, between hope and fanaticism, dream and nightmare is increasingly thin and Christian is forced to walk in balance making choices destined to have profound consequences on the utopia of a suburb finally pacified and freed from crime.
Source-tg24.sky.it