
CARRYING A WEAPON AT A RAVE PARTY: THE “ELECTROCLASH SPAGHETTI WESTERN” OF DAVIDE MANULI FILMS
By José Sarmiento Hinojosa
The dance ritual as an identity of a group or an individual is elemental in Manuli’s films: symbolic elements of dialogue or expression of the body against what’s being imposed to them dramatically. As such, the escapist rhythms serve as rhetoric figures of the tale. Kaspar Hauser, the legend, escapes his own transcendence through a mechanism of frantically expressive moves (aptly performed by danseuse Silvia Calderoni) which expresses the sentimental learning of the lead role. If in Herzog’s version of the same film, Hauser (Bruno S.) strived to give significance to his dialogue permeating it with the essential, carefully choosing whatever important thing he perceived after his long captivity, Calderoni (and androgynous, spastic character) responds to the weight of the dramatic with mystical dancing: Hauser is no longer a boy found in an empty room, he’s an extra- terrestrial being sent from space to destroy status quo. Calderoni’s character does not strive to live up to the expectations of society; he’s an alien being, a portrait of the absurd, a messianic character.