I was born and still live in Rijeka, the biggest Croatian port but by global standards a really small city of less than 200 000 people. Although it's one of the biggest ports of the Adriatic sea it's a fairly unimportant city on a bigger scale, but just some hundred years ago that wasn't so. In 1918, after the end of WWI, the city of Rijeka (then called Fiume, the meaning of both names being "river") was one of the hottest points of dispute with both Italy and Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) claiming sovereignty over what was until then the main Austro-Hungarian port. It even provoked Allies to take control over the city until the negotiations were finished, with US president Woodrow Wilson being the main arbiter in the dispute. But that situation didn't last long as in September 1919 Italian poet and soldier Gabriele D'Annunzio gained control over the city with around 2 500 loyal troops. Thus was created Italian Regency of Carnaro, a self-proclaimed state with D'Annunzio at the helm which was opposed by nearly everybody, Italians included. It lasted for a little more than a year and seemingly left no marks on the future city of Rijeka but made a very peculiar and unusual historic oddity.
The short history lesson has its reasons. It is precisely that small episode of history that inspired Pierre-François Beauchard, a French comic book writer and illustrator commonly known as David B., to create a book called "Par les chemins noirs" ("Black Paths"). The book introduces us to Lauriano, Italian who's had enough of war but can't shake off its horrors, a man who is made up of his works and beliefs and lives in a "Land of No-Where" growing apart from the world that surrounds him. Like most of the other characters he lives by pillaging all over the city of Rijeka (I've decided to refer to it by its current name) along his comrades from the war. But that's just to survive on that most basic level. Lauriano is in fact a dreamer, a lost soul finding and losing itself over and over again. In that he's a metaphor for the city of Rijeka itself (at a given point in time). Run by a man whose ambition is as endless as his love of art, or his insanity for that matter, for a year Rijeka was a home to ex-soldiers, thieves, artists, philosophers, revolutionaries, romantics and simple lunatics of all kinds.
David B. conveys the feeling of a mad city through fragmented approach to several intersecting stories. Lauriano, who's suffering from PTSD and sees the ghost of his dead friend, falls in love with Mina, a cabaret singer, his comrades are caught in a fight with a Milanese gang, a police commissioner is investigating the trafficking of stolen goods, Guido Keller, one of D'Annunzio's closest associates publishes a magazine called "Yoga", and D'Annunzio himself makes plans to conquer Yugoslavia in an armored train. As the stories progress, the violence and absurdity grow bigger and it all ends in a grotesque but liberating Danse Macabre in the streets of Rijeka. Our main character ultimately gets rid of the ghost of his past, but nevertheless gets even more detached from the world, as we realize the past was his greatest link with the present.
The drawing is even more impressive than the story. With a sort of caricatured style and ignoring the rules of anatomy or perspective, David B. manages to make surreal feel normal and normal feel surreal. The style reveals David's influences in its expressionistic and cubistic qualities, which get more apparent as the violence in the story rises, bringing the old "homo homini lupus" saying to its extreme. Some of the pictures have an impressive, painting-like quality, making it almost a shame they're confined to such a small space. The colour palette is comprised mostly of pastel shades and dominated by bluish-grey for the night scenes and red (often becoming garish) as an indicator of heightened emotions.
"Par les chemins noirs" makes the most out of a historic curiosity. It sows facts but from them grows illusion as well as truth. What happened makes way for all that didn't but could or even should have. There's romance, war, art, ghosts, saints, thieves, and the most sane individual is the one least connected to this world. It's a really beautiful mess which shows that faith can indeed be helpful, those of others if not your own, and proves that the blackest of paths can lead to the light. Even if only with the help of a saint.
No comments:
Post a Comment