Àdepsic Rebours (2017)

Jean is a French student, for a year he attended the philosophy master's degree in Italy. His personality is the modern makeover of the typical Parisian decadents of the late 1800s. Anti-conformism, hatred of mundane customs and false intellectualism, at some point precipitate it in the so-called Spleen of Baudelaire. Dave, instead, English, attends the physics master in Italy. His Spleen is much more defeated by a psyche altered by real delusions and rooted since childhood. Jean and Dave entertain a party with friends, during which Dave buys several bottles of opium from a drug dealer. After leaving the party, after having lost themselves in the streets of an abandoned industrial area, they return to retirement. That is the last time Jean physically relates to Dave. Dave enters the rigorous exile, Jean, two days later, will follow the same path. Isolation is interrupted only by an eye on the world, through the internet connection. The observation focuses particularly on videos made by different personalities of society, women and men of various ages, social status, IQ, alienation and ambitions, sometimes ironic, sometimes humorous and grotesque. They also browse the world from the political, economic, wars and disasters, both in the past and in the present. The abuse of opium soon makes them vulnerable to post-depressive states, until they reach a form of restlessness and neurosis. The psyche comes to a state without space and time, made of sleep and dreams that are increasingly confused with the reality of the lives of others observed on the Internet, interacting with some species that capture their imagination. Some of the many: the man with the Magritte bowler, of which you can always see only half the face, in profile, of shoulders, which in strange speech is expressed as an oracle; or the young chief Sioux, dressed and made up for the war, who, after bizarre movements of the body, in labial, reports wisdom; or the whimsical presenter of an abstract talk show, interviewing crazy guests who reveal how to find heaven in hell; or the revolutionary magnetic that points the finger at the mistakes of the world; or the dancer who becomes a sexual object. Meanwhile, Jean is invaded by mail and video of his mother who denies any opportunity to speak. At that point you contact the French psychiatrist Victor Leblanc. After a long resistance from Jean, Victor comes to visit him in Italy, but their very short dialogues take place through a closed door. Often Victor, expelled by Jean, enters to talk with Phaedrus, another personality tamed by a profound solitude. The emotional annihilation of Jean and Dave is only euphoric in the active action of opium. In those moments, Jean remembers Adele, his girlfriend, and the life stimuli, forgotten; instead Dave seems to overcome melancholy and is pleasantly teased by the memories of his erotic spasms. The pleasure is dispersed in physical pain, fever and great sadness, as soon as the effect of opium disappears. A swing of euphoria and depression that does not seem to end. But to stop the exile is Dave's death. One morning, at dawn, during a video call with Jean, a friendly and jovial conversation, which reveals nothing about the intentions of suicide, suddenly Dave shoots a blow to the head. Jean's psyche falls into the abyss, a precipice erected by guilt and grief over the loss of his dear friend. Released from opium, he completely relies on Victor's care.