A dense mystery all too explained

Listen to the audio version of the article

In the jumble of docuseries that Netflix has been publishing in recent times, there are at least two constants: the rather brazen use of narrative techniques typical of fiction, especially thriller; the tension between local and global, that is the attempt to tell stories well rooted in a certain culture but presenting them in a way that can be received everywhere.

The Emanuela Orlandi case is perfect for this type of operation: it is a profoundly Italian story both for the very wide conspiracy it raises and because it takes place mainly in the Vatican, the State in the State where the pope is absolute monarch, a place without equal to the world. Moreover, it is a case that the international media have spoken about several times, because in its periodic re-emergence it involved international terrorism, the KGB, the Banco Ambrosiano scandal, relations between the Vatican and Communist countries, and so on. Vatican girlwhich in fact reconstructs forty years of evolution of the investigations on Emanuela Orlandi, is transnational also because it was written by the British Mark Lewis and produced by the Italian (but transplanted to the UK) Chiara Messineo.

I don’t know how it will be received abroad, but for the Italian spectator this time the mechanism does not work: beyond the fact that detailed things are often obvious to us (the Vatican, Rai, Who has seenetc.), the main problem is that all the leads that we already know to be false are followed in detail, with ample detour about Roberto Calvi, the Magliana gang, Solidarność and Mehmet Ali Ağca. The entire third episode is dedicated to Marco Accetti, who in the end is branded as an impostor, as we expected on the other hand. I can imagine that a Danish or Korean spectator, completely unaware of the story, lets himself be tossed about by the incredible historical and human repertoire involved, but for those who have always had at least a smattering of it, the scaffolding of the storytelling they are far too prominent. The comparison between Vatican girl And Wanna, on the TV seller Wanna Marchi, shows how difficult it is to find the balance between local and global that platforms need: the second, perhaps difficult to appreciate for a foreign audience, is irresistible for us; the first, however, does not hold up to four episodes and would have worked better in 120 minutes.

Vatican girl
by Mark Lewis
Netflix