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06 June1935
Honeymoon Cruise
Author
Famiglia Notarbartolo di Sciara
Format
16mm
Credits
Music by Lea Keyaert - Mix audio by Théophile Gagnard | Biennio di Musica da Film del Conservatorio di Musica di Bologna

Nothing is eternal. This 16mm film suffers from an incurable disease, the vinegar syndrome, which attacks the emulsion and gradually and irretrievably renders the images unreadable, altering them until they are completely erased. Let us seize the moment: something here is still visible, right from the caption presenting this excerpt: "Meeting on the Rex with the bride and groom returning from America June 1935." The bride and groom are Marco Notarbartolo di Sciara, with the inevitable camera he brought on his honeymoon, and his wife Emma Vanzetti. Here is Emma in the cabin of the transatlantic liner Rex, during breakfast. She smiles after opening a box. From whom did she receive the bouquet of flowers? From her husband, or from her brother Guido or Italo Balbo? We see her conversing with them on the deck of the Transatlantic. Marco keeps filming, from above: the ship's deck, the smokestacks, the docks and the lifeboats. And again Emma conversing with another woman at a small table in the bar. The Rex arrives in the port of Genoa - of which Marco offers a view: from the upper deck of the ship it is possible to see the Lanterna and the outline of the hills surrounding the city by the sea. A group, consisting of Emma, Guido Vanzetti and another woman - holding a camera - observe the panorama. The last shots are devoted to the jubilant crowd on the docks of the port of Genoa waiting for the ship to dock. The world that Marco saw is doomed to destruction and oblivion (and rather quickly too if we consider the speed of historical processes and the consequences of men's actions). The vinegar syndrome shatters even the last illusion, that at least the film will preserve a trace of it forever.

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