«Happy to deal with certain themes with animation»- Corriere.it

Sarah, Secco and the Armadillo, Zero’s conscience. At the appeal of This world won’t make me bad, the second series that Michele Rech, aka Zerocalcare, has made for Netflix — from today in six episodes — no one is missing. An old friend, Cesare, also emerges from the past, unexpected detonator of contradictions, at the time of the opening of a reception center for migrants in the neighborhood. Rebibbia, of course, as already in the first, Tear along the edges
. “Of which, however, this is not a second season”, specifies the Roman cartoonist.

As always, ever since the self-produced comics, he has drawn from real life, here the social tensions within the community linked to the arrival of foreigners, between those who think they have to defend themselves from the “invaders”, fomented by the far right and those who insist on believing that one can never save oneself alone. A parallel story to the one told by Ken Loach in his latest film, The Old Oak. «It is a point of reference that I would never approach, if not for the sensitivity towards certain topics. I wrote this before the other, it started from something that was happening not only in Rome and in Italy, and from the many Caesars I met in my life. But I didn’t feel capable of telling it. At that time I had begun to measure myself with the short format of Rebibbia quarantine For Live propagandaI thought I’d keep it aside. I’m glad it’s the latter because it allows me to speak to an audience that already knows the characters, easier to introduce more complex elements». Happy to be able to treat them to animation. “It’s hard to get past the idea that they’re products for children.”

The heart of the story is the protagonists, now over thirty years old, more or less aware that life goes on and many can’t keep up with it. «It is a story of friendship and also of its limits, of the failures of friendship. Something we have all measured ourselves against in recent years: thinking of knowing who is next to us including those closest to us, people who have had completely unexpected reactions to the present». Not only on the issue of migrants. Which in the series becomes a watershed: whoever is against the center plays the game of the “Nazis”. «I don’t think that anyone who has doubts about the methods of reception is a Nazi, on the contrary. But I try to make a big distinction between those who experience certain hardships on their own skin, like the character of Cesare, and believe in solutions that I don’t agree with and those who exploit those people for their own electoral gain. Fascism? It is evidently no longer an obstacle to come from that history and claim cultural continuity: I don’t like it but it is. There is no precluded position for those who refer to that historical event, for Nazism instead the point is kept a little more».

At the heart of the series remains Zero, the one who “made his money with comics”. Who says: «I am aware of the fact that I am living in an extremely fortunate condition. Won’t this world make me bad? One cannot say it by oneself but I think that one must still believe that it is possible not to get nasty. Otherwise it no longer makes sense to even have value compasses of any kind. I don’t think that individuals make the difference, I think that everyone can make a small contribution in that direction. Because if you feel good in a world that feels bad, sooner or later someone will come knocking on your door». The Armadillo always knocks on him (to whom Valerio Mastandrea continues to lend his voice, while the new entry Silvio Orlando does it with a commissioner) to bring him back down to earth. And also to play down the catchphrase on the Roman accent: «You could be someone from Trieste who looks very The Cesaroni».