The movie "Zapata, El Sueno del Heroe" is the second collaboration of the director Alfonso Arau with the Director of Photography Vittorio Storaro AIC,ASC.The story of the Mexican revolutionary is expressed with different colors, and each one represents a different stage of the evolution of his life and his role in the Mexican history.The different colors refers to the Aristotelian elements:fire, water, earth and air. According to the Aristotle's theory, these are the basic elements from which all the substances are generated. These four elements are forms of energy that Zapata assumes and delivers for completing his mission: the son of a simple mestizo peasant that leads the revolt of the poor farmers to the fall of the dictator Porfidio Diaz, at the cost of his life. The colors that wrap the whole lenght of the movie are astounding, with elegant and sophisticated tones, offering a color dichotomy between the terrorizing coldness of the battle scenes and a comforting warmness of the peacetime scenes.The first image of Zapata shows him dressed in black, and at the end he is dressed in white: the transition from the lightes color (black), to the heaviest color (white), is associated with the evolution of the man and the his spiritual maturity, and this dynamic develops an energy, like the one that Zapata transfers in the Mexican's people, that heartily remains even after his death. The movie hinges on a multitude of Emiliano Zapata's close-ups where initially his eyes are covered from the shadow cast by the sombrero's brim, and slowly disclosing, until the face is fully lit. Shadows hides the one that light shows: the inner man is represented in the shadow, the dark and unrevealed side of the human being, where anxieties and fears lie, but also where courage and ideas are from.The artificial light has been regulated through a dimmer console, in order to carefully adjust in real time luminosity and color, harmonizing it with a subject in a given scene. The subtler sentiments have a photographic transposition in which certain states of soul are associated to particular tonalities of light. Emiliano Zapata is a chaser and a chased, escorted by nightmares and dreams. A very intense experience in the representation of the dream/magic/nightmare lived between light and shadows, darkness and dazzle.The majority of the shots have been shot with a "normal" lens, only battle scenes have been shot with a wider-angle lens in order to amplify the tension. Elegant and smooth camera movements become much more rapid associated to unconventional camera angle during combats, following the frenetic battle pace. It's impressive the frequentness of camera movements: from the elegant dolly shots gliding around a dialog to the crane shots showing the gourgeness of the Mexican landscape or the tragedy of the battlefield, all encomiastically contributing to enhance the film's poetry.In some ways this is a movie about movement: the restless journey that Emiliano Zapata covers to live his dream, and nothing will stop him about pursing it. Zapata has a premonition,he sees himself killed in a cornfield. That moment of perturbation captures the emotion that comes for everyone: you can either choose to live in a imperturbable situation or follow your dreams, even if this will mean to face an undesired destiny.The shooting has been delegated at two cameras: one mostly set at eye-level and the other set on the crane in order to offer a different perspective of a given scene. The visual structure of the shots is irreproachable, with perfect balance, dynamics, alternation of dark and bright tonality. The Director of Photograpy has a fond love for Zapata's close-ups, which has intensely portrayed during punchy speeches or ponderous looks. Using the "Univisium" format (2:1 aspect ratio), that Vittorio Storaro developed a decade ago, which is wider than the "Wide Screen U.S."(1.85 aspect ratio) commonly used, the character is never really alone on the screen, but always surrounded by composite elements. The wider format is very effective, showing a big country like Mexico and a big person like Zapata has been, the first for territorial dimension and the second for the exceptionally of his actions that signed the course of the Mexican history.The movie indulges the love of the director Alfonso Arau, (who also wrote the movie), for the Mexican culture which finds its origins in the Aztec culture, with its natural magic, with alchemical and esoterical foundations. These cultures and disciplines, that influenced Arau's style, seems to be the point of reference that Vittorio Storaro had to keep in consideration to filtrate his vision in order to convey the director's achievements.The marvel about the movie is the way that Arau shows the temper of the different characters playing, and the meticulousness in illustrating the less-known aspects of Mexican folklore.With a distinctive cinematography, Vittorio Storaro captures both Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros artworks: an epoch that comes to life again through the light and colors of the painters of the period, showing a big picture of the early twenty century Mexican history. Every sequence is based on a specific selection of tonality, the different elements are molded in a fantastic scenery, where things are shining in the unreal light of the dream: the dream of the hero.
By Andrea Giachi, Florence, Italy
