Fuani Marino, a film after the book: psychic pathology is not a shame

Fuani Marino has always been beautiful. She was so as a child (a bon ton child) and as a rebellious teenager and then as an adult, as appears from the photos and videos chosen by Francesco Patierno for his docufilm Wake me up at midnight, taken from the book of the same name by the Neapolitan journalist and writer, published from Einaudi three years ago. That book is the backbone of Patierno’s intense and pungent film presented at the Turin festival, which arrives in theaters on Monday 13, and re-proposes the theme of suicide, attempted by Fuani in 2013. A film built with a collage of images, those of ‘author mixed with those of the repertoire, cleverly grafted by the director in the biographical reconstruction. The narrative voice of Eva Padoan acts as a glue, with excerpts selected and reworked from the book.

Already the publication of Wake me up at midnight, with the story of the writer’s psychic suffering, had been a courageous and necessary disclosure, to fight the taboos that persist around this type of pathology. But now the film is a double revelation, with the projection on the screen of his private life, photos of family members, of his daughter Greta. Did it take even more courage?

In reality, I began to feel almost like a performer, one of those who place work on the body at the basis of their research. I think of Sophie Calle and her work on her mother’s death. Certain painful themes are renegotiated through cinema or writing, which are therefore not exhibitions in themselves but part of an artistic process.

This time there is also the family in the foreground …

Paradoxically, the book was more difficult. There I really came out and exposed my family as well. With the actual film having the strongest impact, for the first step had already been taken.

How does it feel to see one’s life mixed with images of an Italy in transformation…

Patierno was very good, he got his hands on the mare magnum of the Luce Archives and made the film not only a private story, but a collective one. He has created a patchwork in which many can recognize themselves.

In the film there are excerpts from a personal diary…

I have always kept a diary, since childhood. Reopening this baggage was an emotionally very strong moment; the diary was the outlet of my youth and now i understand that everything was already inside: the discomfort, the restlessness. When I went to school it wasn’t used yet, but now I would have been “attention” for so many attitudes. Instead my rebellion was played down. After all, I understand it, the temptation not to see that kind of very strong discomfort, something that is scary.

Three years after the release of the book, what is the balance? Was it the right choice to tell your story?

Over and over again I wondered who made me do it… But I’m not sorry at all, I believe in the political value of this operation, created to make people understand that these are pathologies like any other and there is no need to be ashamed. Of course, not a neutral book. It has also caused me problems, friction, even in the family not everyone has understood my choice. But my friendships have remained unchanged.

And how did it go for Greta? No mistrust from the parents of her friends, as feared in the book?

No, I would say no. I don’t know if with fear or not, but the parents of the little friends have continued to send them to our house, my daughter’s social life does not seem to have been affected in any way.

And the letter at the end of the book? Did Greta read it?

She is 10 and a half years old, but since the book came out she knows the whole truth about me. She had always asked me how I got my scars, how I fell. In a simple way, we explained to her that I have a disorder that can make me do dangerous things if I don’t take care.

By the way, how’s the treatment going?

Well enough, I’m compensated now, but my struggle is a daily one. And this fatigue that is recognized for other evils, not for those in my condition. This undermines the patient’s safety, his very identity.

Is writing a therapy or a vocation?

Both. I have always written and this has always helped me. Art, cinema, literature are lifeblood that helps to live. And this goes for everyone.