CLOWNS

A small theater company is rehearsing a play based on the opera I Pagliacci in front of a small audience, including the mother of the singer, a wealthy woman and benefactor of the project. That evening, during a dinner party, the guests undergo a hypnosis session that goes wrong.

Once again, a mother-son relationship takes center stage in Marco Bellocchio’s volatile short, in which a revival of Ruggero Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci erupts in explosive confrontations. Operatic in its expression, this vortex of raw emotions evokes the eternal tension between money and art-making.