Page 54 - GIAMPAOLO TALANI

If we were to make a movie of Talani’s paintings, Tom Hanks would be the perfect
protagonist. Not the Hanks of “Forest Gump”, although he would be at home on the
waterfront, but the Hanks of “Cast Away”. He is the image of a disoriented post-modern
Robinson Crusoe on the beach of a deserted island (which is so munch more disturbing
than the Tirrenian coast) who is in the throws of building an existence as someone
emarginated and even more importantly when he returns home (we can see that the
animals on the beach are very much “cast aways”). Another perfect protagonist could
be, perhaps, the timid, lost and vulnerable character (not silly but dignified) in “The
Terminal”, who is forced to live in a New York airport because of a bureaucratic problem,
and who keeps a box with mysterious contents jealously close to him, at all times, recalling
the suitcases if Talani’s travellers. But, perhaps, the most appropriate character would
be that digitally elaborated protagonist of “Polar Express”, transformed into a cartoon
by the “performance capture” technique. It is naturally in perfect harmony with the
characters whose souls are painted. The waterfront microcosm, like the deserted island
of the cast away or the airport terminal, is, in fact, a stage set. It is both fairytale like and
realistic; it is a poetic apologue that hides depths on its surface, with alternating registers
of frivolity and melancholy, of torment and irony, in order to put on the tragedy of the
displaced person and the crisis of identity. Talani underscores the comedy of sentiments
and also the resources of love and friendship, but he also presents the drama of solitude
and the mistrust we feel toward our fellow man.
With an agitated sensation that they are living an incomplete, false and unreal life,
he creates a fertile short circuit between an ancient solidarity and a contemporary
restlessness, between a feeling of being lost and a need for roots. If the compass rose can
no longer be the instrument of orientation for their journey, then, perhaps it will be the
jazz orchestration of Talani’s paintings that can organize the chaos of our complicated
times, composing in a jam session of lines, colours and emotions a new world harmony.
He assumes responsibility for all the perplexities and defeats, but stubbornly champions
the kaleidoscope vitality and melancholy, nostalgia and desire, that watch over the
destiny of every departure and every return. So, as in “The Terminal”, in the end, it will
be swing that saves us.

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