“My Notes on Mars”, an intriguing melodrama opening the Giornate degli Autori

‘Our story champions great love, whilst acknowledging just how limited our understanding of the person beside us really is. It’s a bit like looking at Mars from Earth. From our vantage point, that planet was once fascinating and always distant – the red planet of desire. Now, however, our perspective has changed. It is a place where we could live, a territory to be conquered. And, consequently, it is an environment to be respected and protected. The same applies to love: the way we love another person says as much about us as it does about them’: director Lili Horvát used these words to introduce her film, highlighting a metaphor that, whilst undoubtedly fascinating within the film, is not entirely successful.”

Although the film’s foundations are rich in evocative elements, there is an overall sense of indecisiveness due to the excessive number of overly cryptic sequences, and the many themes explored are not always treated with the necessary depth.

Despite these limitations, however, it remains an undeniably unconventional and intriguing vision, in which one can easily discern various echoes of Michelangelo Antonioni’s films, from *L’avventura* to *L’eclisse*.

It is worth noting that the programme for the Giornate degli Autori will also feature other highly anticipated films, such as Robert Guédiguian’s “Une femme aujourd’hui” and Nicola Sorcinelli’s “Balcanica”.