Having won over audiences with his wonderfully intimate comic books, Zerocalcare (whose real name is Michele Rech) is ready to reach the small screen with Tear Along The Edges, the animated series by Netflix protagonist of this review. After reaching and exceeding the milestone of one million copies sold of his books in 2019, the author has decided to launch himself in the panorama ofanimation to experience a new way of telling his personal life experiences.
Composed of six episodes lasting about fifteen minutes each, Strappare Lungo i Bordi is written and directed by Zerocalcare itself, and is produced by Movimenti Production in collaboration with Bao Publishing, the Italian publishing house that accompanied the cartoonist from the beginning, after the self-production of La profezia dell’armadillo (later reprinted by Bao in 2001) and the launch of Un octopus in the throat in 2012. Overcoming the intimate limits of graphic novel, Zerocalcare aims to reach an even wider audience thanks to Netflix. We had the chance to preview all six episodes of Strappare Lungo i Bordi, which will arrive on the streaming platform next November 17, and here’s our review.
Black belt of how to avoid life
As we have already anticipated in this review, Strappare Lungo i Edi focuses on one particular life experience by the well-known Italian cartoonist and brings some of the famous characters of his narrative universe to the big screen. The main focus of the series sees Zerocalcare and his childhood friends Dry And Sarah struggling with a journey extremely hard to face, studded with flashbacks and anecdotes that start from memories years of school and reach the evergreen existential crises of more adulthood, between uncertainties and worries.
Accompanied by doubts and paranoia and by the constant presence ofArmadillo (which, as comic book fans will know, embodies all those feelings of inadequacy), Zerocalcare tells a story that uses irony to bring to the small screen a pungent analysis of the conditions of a “forgotten” generation, mistreated and daughter of inadequate choices. What the author brings to the stage is a real one stream of consciousness who, moving through memories and feelings, manages to accompany us on an emotionally overwhelming journey that, between one laugh and another, hides (and not too deeply) something very deep.
Despite the reduced length of the episodes, Rip Along the Edges still manages to win us over and drag us into this flow of memories, considerations, uncertainties and feelings. From this point of view, in reality, the length of time soon reveals itself to be one of the main strengths of the entire work. The pace of Zerocalcare is pressing and, exactly as happens in the pages of comics, the author enjoys wandering between a large number of topics to achieve his main purpose, without dwelling too much on any of these specifically. And so a rant about the conditions of the rooms of the house becomes a way to tell about responsibility and what it really means to start creating your own personal spaces, while a dialogue on public restrooms analyzes the importance of complaints.
If you know the narrative style of Zerocalcare you can rest assured. Tearing along the edges contains all the main features of the author and almost seems to see one of his comics to come alive on the small screen, effectively acquiring all those sounds, colors and music that normally enrich the works only when they reach the minds of the readers. This aspect is further emphasized by the dubbing which sees the cartoonist himself giving the voice to all the characters in the series, except for theArmadillo, expertly voiced by the actor Valerio Mastandrea.
A stream of consciousness that starts from Rebibbia
As we have already anticipated in this review, Strappare Lungo i Bordi is an extremely significant work for the Italian animation scene. Although it is the result of a still rather unripe experimentation, born from the project courts Rebibbia Quarantine, the series presents itself with a decidedly high visual level, with fluid animations, rhythmic and rich in details. Furthermore, these are further embellished by the author’s characteristic graphic style, perfectly recognizable and shaped in the course of his publications. The cartoonist’s editorial history has seen a large number of changes, from short comic strips to overseas reports, passing from playbills to posters. Different genres and, in this case, also different languages.
Animation therefore manages to give even more intimacy to the works of a cartoonist who, through his “homemade” and pungent comedy, has always had a lot to say and to offer to the world. An author capable of shape very well his artistic and narrative style to reach an ever wider and different audience. A stream of consciousness that makes you laugh, and yet a lot, but at the same time makes you think and leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth and a great burden on the stomach. Strappare Lungo i Bordi is an intimate and exciting production, a journey to be carried away and that will leave you breathless.
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