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Emiliano Bertocchi
•Bella, a teenage girl, moves back in with her father in a small American provincial town. At school, she meets Edward, a mysterious boy who attracts and repels her at the same time. Bella and Edward start dating, after he saves her life, the girl begins to question the true nature of Edward, only to discover that the boy she is falling in love with is actually a vampire.
Vampirism is a theme that literature and cinema have always treated with great attention. Perhaps because it encompasses several important aspects of human nature. Vampire stories reach their peak when they go beyond their horror limits to transform into deep reflections on our being. "Dracula by Bram Stoker" by Francis Ford Coppola is a wonderful representation of eternal love and uses the codes of cinematic melodrama to stage this passion that transcends the oceans of time. "The Addiction" by Abel Ferrara is a philosophical text that starts from the association between addiction and vampirism to then seek the deep roots of evil within the human being.
"Twilight" also, thanks to its literary matrix (the novels by Stephenie Meyer), seems to prefer a cross-reading of the theme of vampirism to show the problems of adolescent relationships, but also their strength, innocence, and passion, desire, and fear. In this perspective, we must see the birth of the love between Bella and Edward and the whole series of emotional mechanisms that are triggered between two teenagers when they discover they like each other. The director is always attentive to the reactions of the two protagonists and prefers the use of the close-up to capture the nuances of their faces. Slight movements of the lips, shadows, and lights in the eyes, and the magnificent face of Kristen Stewart (already seen in "Into the Wild") which becomes an expressive universe of extraordinary beauty and intensity.
The apparent distance that Edward shows towards Bella at the beginning is even more striking if seen within the dynamics of a love story, because it demonstrates how necessary distance is to understand the need to have the loved one by one's side, and in this continuous dialectic between losing and finding oneself, between giving up and continuing to fight, the presence of an indelible romanticism is revealed, the true driving force of the protagonists' actions.
Eternal love is one of the other characteristics of vampire stories, but it is also one of the most beautiful promises that boys and girls can make. Like all those present in the room, who still get excited at the sight of a kiss or a glance. And it is right that they continue to do so, believing in love. Real as imaginary.
