Il volo: Wim Wenders’ short documentary on hybrid space in Calabrian shrinking cities

Abstract

Abstract This article proposes an analysis of Wim Wenders’ Il volo (2010), which could be translated as Flight. This short documentary film shows how 300 immigrants, who had debarked on the Ionic side of Italy, were welcomed by the local Calabrian communities of the so-called ghost towns or shrinking cities in the Locride. Contrary to what the topic of Wenders’ short documentary might surmise, Il volo is not an expository nor an observational narration on the integration of (il)legal immigrants in Italy, with long (panoramic) shots and extended sequences, but it combines cinematic resources and techniques that belong to the poetic and the reflexive mode of documentary filmmaking. As I will demonstrate, Wenders’ documentary clearly ‘emphasises visual associations, tonal or rhythmic qualities, descriptive passages, and formal organisation’, while it also ‘calls attention to the assumptions and conventions that govern documentary filmmaking’ (Nichols 2012, p. 31).