A Man Without Guilt, the debut work of Ivan Gergolet, is a narrative of a collective drama seen from home against the backdrop of Fincantieri’s Monfalcone.
Asbestos still kills
A film of exposure, but also of broken friendships, loneliness, revenge, revenge. All in search of the desired inner serenity. Against a black background, or rather, gray, like the color of the dust that many had the misfortune to inhale in Monfalcone at the Fincantieri shipyards, unravel in innocent man daily experiences are interrupted by death from mesothelioma, a terrible disease that has a direct relationship with exposure to asbestos.
devastated territory
This is a collective drama told in the film, covering vast territories from Trieste and Gorizia to the border with Slovenia. An inexorable death comes and leaves its victims lifeless, forced to burn an oxygen tank in the last faint hope of staying alive. But the funeral comes on time. To the cinema Ivan Gergolet, in its first attempt at feature films, chooses a new version to tell a story that spans a very large area. He does this by making the protagonist a middle-aged woman, a widow, lonely, lost in her daily working life, close to sick people. How innocent manstarting from the first scene, reminiscent of a Greek tragedy, the chorus, pointing to a criminal who will never be convicted, changes direction and assumes a female identity, driven by a great sense of revenge, which almost comes to the torture of a man. who, in the general narrative, is responsible for the death of her husband.
Dialogue between glances and gestures
Enough innocent man then focuses on typical scenes in the sick room, with the nurse acting as caregiver. But a bond develops between patient and caregiver/child that goes almost beyond mutual violence towards each other, but also a strong attraction. Photos rummaged through the drawers tell of a young man unaware of the sword of Damocles looming over three friends and work colleagues. The relentless killer Fiber has killed two of them and continues to claim victims. A woman also dies, whose misfortune is to inhale the deadly dust from her husband’s overalls. Subtly, but not overly, the role of the local trade union movement, which did little or nothing to prevent the asbestos slaughter, was pointed out. A trade unionist who came to give another funeral speech (he is played by an actor Paolo Rossi) is contrasted and indicated by the immobility shown. The main character played well Valentina Carnelutti, absorbed by his domestic gestures, his obsessive servility, animated and fed by a subtle desire for revenge. Scene by scene, however, the relationship with the patient, played out Branko Zavrsan, it reveals. Children also play a role in all of this. That of her daughter is openly broken; absolute misunderstanding of the role played by the father, the role of himself. This is the direction of the details, the hand resting on the hip, the finger that becomes numb and gradually tense, the attempted sexual harassment in the pool, which from a leisure tool becomes a medical institution for pathology. .
“The peak is yet to come”
Monfalcone does not appear in his landscape, and the cement from which the villa overlooking the sea is built acts as an analogue of asbestos. director Ivan Gergolet he received the award for best director in the ItaliaFilmFest competition section of the BIF&ST Bari International Film Festival – the Ettore Scola prize awarded by the audience jury.
“But the worst”says the director on the sidelines of a press screening at the Farnese cinema in Rome. “hasn’t happened yet. The peak of death is approaching.. His innocent man, which will be released in theaters on June 22, is a film that condemns but also addresses territory so that the rifts that tear the social fabric can be bridged. Asbestos, banned by Law No. 257 of 1992, continues to reap its victims. Attempts to completely eliminate timidity. An industrial heritage that breaks lungs, breaks families and even hearts.
Form
Original name: innocent man
Director: Ivan Gergolet
Country/year: Croatia, Italy, Slovenia / 2022
Duration: 112′
Type: Dramatic
Throw: Paolo Rossi, Valentina Carnelutti, Alessandro Bandini, Giusi Merli, Livia Rossi, Branco Zavrsan, Enrico Elia Inserra, Rossana Mortara
Screenplay: Ivan Gergolet
Photo: Deborah Wrizzi
Assembly: Natalie Christiani
Music: Luca Siut
Director: Igor Princic, Boris T. Matic, Jozko Rutar, Lana Matic, Miha Chernets
Production house: Propeller Film, Transmedia, Staragara
Distribution: Arc Film
Release date: 06/22/2023
Trailer
