Ponte 5
Amy Wong
Switzerland | 2012 | 9 min
World premiere
Language : Italian
Subtitles : English, French
The ill-famed neighbourhood of San Laurentino 38, built beyond Rome’s city ring-road, presents an unusual architectural feature: the bridges connecting the social-housing blocks, a metaphor for what should have connected a new generation of Italians born after 1945. But these steel ties are a burden for the locals. For an old man, they are the biggest obstacle he has to cope with.
In the semi-darkness of his slum dwelling, an old man listens to a commercial advertising equipment for persons with reduced mobility. Obviously unaffordable for this resident of San Laurentino 38, the Roman suburb where Amy Wong set up her camera as part of a workshop run by the HEAD in conjunction with filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi (El Sicario, VdR 2011). Architecturally, this district presents an unusual feature: the bridges connecting the social-housing blocks, a metaphor for what should have connected a new generation of Italians born after 1945. Amid the constant traffic noise, the old man of Ponte 5 goes out for a stroll leaning on his wheel-chair. He repeats a ritual that we sense he performs on a daily basis: moving slowly back and forward over the “bridge”, observing a depressing prospect of apartment blocks and steel walkways. Then he goes to the stairway that might connect him to the outside world. But for the old man it is an insuperable obstacle, an image of renunciation. Without a word, in ten or so shots, Wong paints this poignant picture of a very ordinary destiny.
Emmanuel Chicon
Translation BMP Translations