Experiencing Panismo in Sorrentino's The Great Beauty, Youth and Loro

Abstract

Abstract This paper aims to disavow the widespread argument that many of Sorrentino's films are set in what Marc Augé would call non-spaces. Non-place or nonplace is a neologism coined by this French anthropologist to refer to anthropological spaces of transience, where human beings remain anonymous and do not hold enough significance to be regarded as places. However, through an approach inspired by psychogeography and ecocriticism, I will argue that in Sorrentino's films The Great Beauty (2013), Youth (2015), and the diptych Loro 1 and Loro 2 (2018), these non-places undergo a profound ontological transformation. They become significant because their powerful energy becomes a synergy that enters the characters, helping them to overcome their meaningless existence, to transform their lives, and find their lost inspiration. Sorrentino's characters use cityscapes (in The Great Beauty), landscapes (in Youth), and domestic spaces (in Loro 1 and Loro 2) as tools to heal their malaise, artistic aridity, and psychological discontent. They achieve this through a sort of Dannunzian Panismo, which entails an intense fusion between humans and the environment. What is atypical from a Dannunzian perspective is the hypothesis of possibly attaining a panic fusion in a natural and in an urban context, cityscape or domestic space.