Nicotino pulls Orlando's strings.

Entanglements of the Sicilian opera dei pupi in Vincent Dieutre's film Orlando ferito

Abstract

In his film Orlando ferito (2015), filmmaker Vincent Dieutre creates a collage of different images, sequences and overlapping narratives. One of these narrative strands is about the secret life of the Sicilian pupi backstage at their puppet theatre. Their story develops into the actual thread of the film and brings together different levels (autobiographical, essayistic, aesthetic) in a parable. Dieutre’s aesthetic procedures crystallise in the filmic staging of the play about Orlando, who is caught in a deep melancholy, in a constant reversal of reality and fiction, of life and theatre. The Sicilian pupi contribute to this with their allegorical potential by offering multiple identifications. Thus, not only Dieutre recognises himself in a marionette, but also his friends and interlocutors become confused in the threads of the pupi, until their gaze becomes the mirror of the audience in the darkness of the cinema hall.