Ningen Hyohon (2025)

Arte vs Follia: dove finisce la poetica dell’artista e inizia la psicosi dell’omicida

Nel primo episodio c’è stata quella crisi di sopraffazione estetica, quel senso di dissolvimento dell’io che Stendhal descrisse davanti alla bellezza che ti sovrasta e ti smonta, un’esperienza che qui ha attraversato il confine tra schermo e inconscio.
È come se qualcuno avesse camminato nella mia testa, fosse entrato in un incubo e l’avesse trasformato in una installazione artistica.
Quindi, per me, la serie ha smesso di essere intrattenimento ed è diventata un’intrusione sconvolgente.
Tra tutte le farfalle che ho scoperto nell’arco narrativo, la Red-Bodied Swallowtail, la “rossa velenosa” che le altre swallowtail, innocue, ne copiano l’aspetto, è il pretesto per raccontare il fulcro relazionale che lega tutti i personaggi in un ciclo di imitazione tossica, solo per sentirsi riconosciuti.
In fondo, tutti inseguono lo sguardo dell’altro per amore o per riconoscimento, ma quello sguardo è sempre mediato dall’arte, fredda, ideale, immortale, e mai dall’umanità calda, imperfetta e amorevole.
Uno dei migliori thriller che ho mai visto: disturbante, triste e doloroso, in cui la bellezza non è un velo sull’orrore ma è l’orrore stesso che si traveste da arte. Ed è crudele e inutile perché avvelena, provocando un conflitto interno tra disgusto morale e fascinazione estetica che ti spacca il cuore e ti lascia con la nausea, il tutto condito con una colonna sonora che ti scava nel cervello.
Mi piacerebbe leggere il libro per saperne di più ma purtroppo non lo trovo.

Leggi di Più

Human Specimens

"In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with humans it is the other way around: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar"
A quote by Anthon Chekhov that I don't agree with, but it fits this drama and its characters too well.
How was something so precious, gentle and pure twisted into something this poisonous?...

This was actually quite a deep and complex psychological thriller.
Bizarre, dark, twisted, gruesome and eerie... yet impressive, brilliant, compelling and deeply immersive. The actors all performed their roles perfectly and convincingly.

I didn't see any of these twists coming. In only five episodes, this drama explores the darkness of the human mind layer by layer, letting you see the story through foggy lenses until you realize you were looking at the mask and not the one behind it. The slow pacing didn't make it boring, but instead gave more intensity and space for emotional build up.
It contrasts all of its horrors nicely with the calmness, light and silence of nature. Despite all, the place itself remained unchanged, brimming with life, beauty and vitality.

Besides exploring the reason behind the murders, death and the way it's either feared or glorified - relationship between parents and their children, genes as a factor of how one's personality and destiny are shaped and an odd bond between childhood friends are all integral parts of this story.
There are some questions left unanswered, but it mostly connected the dots and gave the most appropriate closure. Not the one that feels pleasant, but the one that feels real.

Ultimately, I felt pity and compassion for them, because no matter how many colors they could see, they all lived in complete darkness. They were too self-absorbed and delusional to notice that the world doesn't belong only to them.
I cried watching the ending and my heart ached.
The final scene showed that sometimes it's more about what isn't told/shown then what is. There was also so much love underneath, yet it was too imperfect, weak and fragile to find its way out of the cocoon and turn into a butterfly.

Would I recommend it?
To someone who can watch difficult, heavy things with an open mind, definitely.
For others, it can be triggering and just too much to handle, because each character here has lost themselves in shadows, missing the true essence of art and beauty because they chased after something unattainable and tried to possess, persevere and capture things that were never meant to be held onto by human hands, but admired from afar, in their natural form.

There is a line between madness and genius, and this drama walks on the very edge of it, showing the obsessions, pride and cruelty taking over and forming their own artificial, grand and seemingly everlasting and just, but empty gratification.

Leggi di Più