LA DOLCE MANO DELLA ROSA BIANCA

Marco, after an argument with his girlfriend, gets behind the wheel to get as far away as possible from life's disappointments. His phone rings, Marco gets distracted and hits a girl on a bicycle. Some time later, the boy goes to the cemetery to visit the grave of the girl he killed, but the victim seems to have returned to settle the score. “The Sweet Hand of the White Rose”, a beautiful title that seems to evoke suggestions of certain genre cinema from the 1970s, especially Italian and Spanish, in which numbers, animals, and colors dominated long, complex, and memorable titles. Davide Melini, the author of this short film, seems to want to take other paths, and if it weren't for a gothic atmosphere that permeates the cemetery scene, we would find no other points of contact with the cinema of the past. Perhaps it's better this way, nostalgia operations are far too overdone these days. Melini, who writes, produces, and directs the film, tackles a serious and touching theme such as deaths from road accidents and combines it with the supernatural element, the ghost story. The result is highly satisfying, even if the credit goes more to the technical aspect than to the narrative one. The packaging of “The Sweet Hand of the White Rose” is impeccable, photography (by José Antonio Crespillo), editing (by Biktor Kero), music (by Christian Valente and Ivan Novelli), and direction, all of the highest quality. The photography, which best manages the use of contrasts, was rightly awarded at the Spanish festival “Cesur en Corto”, and the music has the merit of accompanying both the tension scenes (with rock sound) and the stasis scenes (with light tones) functionally. Melini's direction, who had already shown an excellent sense of rhythm in his previous short film “The Puzzle”, is elegant and at the same time virtuosic, capable of excellent management in both tension scenes and those describing the characters' lives. Where Melini's work is weaker, or at least attackable, is the subject's imagination and the narrative development of the same. Let's say right away that it is clear from the beginning where “The Sweet Hand of the White Rose” wants to go, it would like to create a surprise, but a minimum of experience with genre cinema immediately suggests the plot twist to the viewer. Then, emphasizing the moral that lies behind the film with captions or the like is usually not a winning move, even if in the case of Melini's film the dedication that closes the viewing justifies the choice. Bravo the lead actor Carlos Bahos, who is believable in the inner transformation that his character undergoes. Good, although less evident, is also the performance of the very young Natasha Machuca, who plays the innocent and disturbing ferryman of souls. “The Sweet Hand of the White Rose” was selected and reached the final in many festivals around the world, including the famous Malaga Film Festival; moreover, it was broadcast by Spanish television in the summer of 2010. Well-deserved awards and recognitions, surely a more in-depth writing work would have taken it even higher.