Few details are known about thenew animated series that Zerocalcare has drawn for Netflix. It has been known to be called “Tear along the edges” and that its first two installments were presented at the Rome Film Festival, it is known that it will consist of six episodes of 15 minutes each, that it will be released on November 17, and that it was produced by Movimenti Production in collaboration with Bao Publishing.
We have all seen previews of it, the first one more than a few months ago. It is clear that Netflix has invested heavily in Michele Rech – a.k.a. Zerocalcare, that is – at least judging by the mighty marketing machine it has set in motion to create great expectation. If Zerocalcare – the real one, not the drawn one – is as vaguely anxious as his two-dimensional transposition seems to be, I can only imagine how grilled he is feeling in anticipation of Nov. 17.
But I do not know him personally, although his storytelling might give the impression. Have you ever read a writer or seen a movie wondering, “But isn’t he/she talking about himself/herself? It’s not an autobiographical story, is it?” Does it count? Doesn’t that count? I don’t think it matters; the feeling it leaves on you is more important.
Zerocalcare’s voice and tract.
To me, hearing his stories always makes me think that his hallmark is the extreme sincerity and total lack of filters with which he exposes himself by talking about his thoughts, doubts, and reflections. Always with that tone screwed in on itself and that highly accented and cerebral way of speaking, made up of constant jerks and jerks, of lightning-fast thoughts interrupted and then taken up again later. To listen to the words of his short films (and I wrote “listen” not by accident, because it is almost a separate action from seeing and hearing his short films) is to set out to chase a rabbit down his burrow. I think, indeed, that the similarity with the Disney-esque White Rabbit of memory may even fit (maybe he will hate me for this parallel, who knows): when you read or look at any of his work, you have to run after it. And he runs, and he often changes direction and accelerates and stops to look if you’re still there. And then it starts again.
After all, Michele Rech also runs in real life. Many got to know him through his videos broadcast by Propaganda during the lockdown, in which he recounted the dramas of the runner running in the backyard of his apartment building terrified of being caught and feeling guilty every moment. But unable not to.
It would be interesting to ask him if while he is running his thoughts leave him alone for a moment but what we are given to know, for now, is that a few days ago a new video/preview/teaser of the series “Tearing Along the Edges” was released and, as usual (and also fortunately) we can’t understand it. We always complain that lately movie previews tell almost everything about the movies themselves, and so we should take it well that in this case we don’t get much of an understanding: speaking is Secco (i.e., Zerocalcare in cartoon form) who recalls episodes from his adolescence, then talks to Armadillo (voiced by Mastandrea, the only exception since all the other characters are voiced by Zerocalcare himself), then… he does things. According to rumors, everything will be clear in the end, and the complex puzzle that is shown in previous episodes in the form of tiles will compose an unambiguous pattern.
But in the end everything has to make sense, then?
I was reading what is said about it, and I was thinking that about the mosaic and the tiles and other details, I don’t really care that much. What attracts me instead about Zerocalcare’s storytelling? Why is it that when he talks I can’t stop listening to him?
I give myself this explanation: Zerocalcare is my consciousness, he is a kind of shadow that is glued to my feet only, unlike my usual shadow, this one talks and talks and talks.
Do you know all the thoughts in your head? Sometimes you listen to them, sometimes you tell them to shut up, sometimes you don’t mind them at all. Zerocalcare is the set of all that reasoning that turns into a continuous mumbling that is impossible for you to ignore. After all, it would be impossible to separate his graphic narrative from his spoken narrative, the stroke of his pen from his word. As eloquent, distinguishable, and powerful as his graphic technique is, Zerocalcare would be less powerful without his words. Because his way of storytelling is not only made of drawings accompanied by comics with words in them: it is made of words that have the shape of his drawings.
And his words form a discourse almost without punctuation, made by the reasonings of a consciousness chasing itself and a possible truth, asking questions and giving itself answers, without respite.
I realize now that if one did not know Zerocalcare, from what I wrote he would mistake it for an atrocious essay on drawn psychoanalysis. No: Mr. Michele Rech’s problem is that he makes so many people laugh. After all, if he were reading these lines, I can imagine him saying to me, “Ahò ma che stai addì?”, not even aggressive but just briskly intrigued that this is the effect he can have. Or maybe not, who knows. Then he would run off, following other reasoning, looking for the words to say them and the right strokes to draw them.