The film I'm not scared by Gabriele Salvatores, based on the book I'm not scared by Nicolò Ammaniti, give us beautifull pictures of what it means to approach the shadow.
In all of us there is a part of our personality that is hidden, in a shadow. And if we don't listen to it and don't nourish it, it becomes increasingly hungry.
We can read this story as if the characters were parts of a single entity, us watching the film.
The film oscillates between the darkness of a hole in the ground and the blinding light of the cornfields of southern Italy.
And the more light there is, the darker it gets.
It's the story of Michael, 10 years old, 5 B, who discovers a hole in the ground and wants to see what's inside. It's a bit like when we approach our dark parts (the shadow) and we want try to see something.
At first there is only darkness, not able to distinguish anything, but as you get closer, we discover something that we do not understand well, it disturb us. We know that there is something, but we do not know what.
And it can be frightening to discover that in this darkness, there is something alive, some-things that we didn't expect, something that we do not know. Then Michael does something stunning, even if he is scared, he comes back. He returns to try to understand ...
... And the other, of which he knows nothing of, asks for water. When we devote attention to our parts in shadow, it is very important to begin to listen to them, and give them a drink, symbolically, meaning listening to their needs.
And so it turns out that he is a child, 10 years old, just as him. "We are the same", he says surprised. He then discovers that it is possible to meet this new part of himself. Michael brings bread to him, he feeds this child whom he has just met.
Michele makes him come out of the darkness and it's possible to play together. Michael begins to integrate this new part of himself that he had not known and in the beginning he had been scared of so much.
And then there are the adults, to which Michael asks, "But why did you put him in there, I cannot figure it out."
Michele saved his friend, but his friend does not run away, he stays near ... the part that first was in shadow, now is a friend, it doesn't go away.
This interpretation of the film does not want to analyze the role of adults and how Michael knows how to teach them something, it would have needed much more space. My interpretation wants to emphasize that, when you approach the shadow, you can gain new energies, more spontaneity and more freedom. Often, in moments of crisis of our lives, we do not find the solution in our conscious part, lit, full of certainties, but rather starting from doubt, from the mud, from the dark, from what troubles us.
Paola Palmiotto
I'm not scared - film
I'm not scared - book
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