New film “Latina, Latina” explores the fascist architecture and monuments of Italy

The camera pans slowly across a view of the ocean. Crests of white foam break from angry waves.

The white swell and more-grey-than-blue water looks off, like a holiday photo that was developed incorrectly. Too saturated or not saturated enough, it’s hard to say, but there is something uncanny about the seascape in front of us.

This strange ocean frames the face of the film’s unnamed narrator, distorting its outline.

Gliding from left to right and back again the camera does not rest. When we lose sight of the woman’s face, it comes back into view again with a slow, steady sweep of the camera.

Her hair blows in the wind, as she stares at some unseen sight in the distance.

The activity in this first sequence is indicative of the film’s methodical pace. The camera will continue to move slowly, but surely, throughout the entire run-time of Irish artist and writer Adrian Duncan’s Latina, Latina.

Described in its promotional material as a hybrid-documentary, Latina, Latina explores the fascist architecture and monuments of Italy through elaborate short-story-styled framing.

The woman from the opening sequence is an Irish geologist living in Italy. She receives a phone call informing her that her estranged father, who she has not spoken to in 30 years, has had an accident and is in a coma. She travels to Berlin and waits at her father’s apartment for an update on his health.

In the apartment, the woman finds diaries and trinkets, photographs and other souvenirs that recall a trip her father made with a close friend of his to Italy. The action – or, in Latina, Latina’s case it might be more accurate to say, the images – is set to readings from her father’s diary entries and musings from the narrator on her own life.

Stillness

The narration in Latina, Latina, a mix of autofiction for her and memoir from her father, plays alongside the images of statues and the exteriors of buildings.

Sometimes the diary entries line up with what we’re seeing and sometimes they are something of a mood setter.

The narration is not overly emotive. Sometimes the woman will interject with her own feelings, but mainly we hear her father’s words in a sort of monotone.

She alludes to reading a lot more than we are privy to, but is mostly unmoved by this man’s words, a stranger to her for 30 years.

When she searches for mention of her or her mother the diaries turn up nought. This is met with a knowing acceptance rather than the anger it might inspire in a more straight-ahead, dramatic picture.

In the absence of immediate emotional engagement, Duncan invites the viewer to pore over every inch of its framed statues, urban exteriors and interiors, looking and hoping for some movement or even a suggestion of movement.

We are given nothing in the way of foregrounded action, only images to squint at. A leaf blowing in the wind, dust illuminated by the sun, or a lens flare lighting up the frame for a fraction of a second.

In many instances, the frame is so still that it seems as though the camera is panning over a still photo. It’s reminiscent of animation techniques where a camera would pan over a large painting with only the cells in the foreground having any movement.

And so all of these little moments of movement – signs of life – feel monumental when set against the relentless slow and steadi(cam) pans across futurist architecture and countless statues of soldiers.

Past, present, and future

In these moments staring into the screen, scanning every inch of the frame, we’re in the same position as the narrator, diving into her father’s journey through Italy as well. Searching for meaning in his words and in the buildings themselves.

There are cinematic parallels in Latina, Latina’s languid presentation of these structures and statues. The New Italian Cinema, and in particular the work of Michaelangelo Antonioni comes to mind, in how these buildings are shot.

These are the backdrops of the Italian cinema’s golden age and also, the post-golden age where rich and glamorous people live out empty lives framed by sheer concrete walls and massive archways.

These buildings and statues are never free of the enormity of the war years and the long shadows they cast covers the land itself.

The narrator’s father has a great interest in this architecture and iconography of fascist-era Italy. His friend and travel companion, Carlo, labels it a “fetish” and questions the seriousness of his research.

Her father’s writing varies in tone and thoughtfulness. He comments on the weather, and on the particulars of the scenes around a building or a monument.

Occasionally, other observations arise. A statue of a gargoyle has him imagining a future yet to come that’s foretold by these statues of monsters and soldiers overlooking city streets. That these same buildings were used in many science-fiction productions in the 1970s backs this up.

The narrator’s father ends his journey in the planned town of Latina, built upon reclaimed marshlands in the 1930s. There, as with every stop on his trip, there are monuments, buildings and statues that attempt to bring to life the past, carved out of stone and made to last forever.

There’s some comfort in the mossy growth on some of the pillars then, an obelisk reading “Mussolini” has many of the letters obscured by algae and erosion.

There’s a standout image towards the close of the film, when the narrator’s father’s storyline is reaching its conclusion. We see clouds and a sunset reflected in the water at Latina.

The clouds are a deep red and the water is very still. It becomes harder and harder to tell where the horizon is. The camera moves and cuts abruptly here.

The impression is that the world has flipped upside-down. That the past, present and future aren’t as separate as we like to believe.

This film was recently screened at the Dublin International Film Festival. A wider release is forthcoming.