“When you are away from the coast, to escape is often the only way to save the boat and the crew. Moreover, you will discover unknown shores appearing on the horizon of the waters, once the calm returns. Those unknown shores will be forever ignored by those who have the illusory chance to follow the route of cargo and oil tankers, the safe route imposed by shipping companies. Perhaps you know that boat called "desire"
Henri Laborit,Éloge de la fuite (1976)
There was a time, approximately twenty years ago, when topics like exile and escape were addressed in generous and original ways in the Italian culture. There was the cinema of Gabriele Salvatores (Mediterraneo, Marrakech Express) "dedicated to all those who are running away", and that of Mario Martone (Death of A Neapolitan Mathematician,War Theatre), filled with characters defeated by life. There were bands like 99 Posse, Almamegretta, Daniele Sepe & Rote Jazz Fraktion who celebrated the roots of militant anti-fascism, while suggesting desertion from Western society. And then, the nomadic literature of Pino Cacucci (Puerto Escondido), the anti-militarist comics of Sergio Bonelli (Tex, Dylan Dog) and Hugo Pratt (Corto Maltese) and overall in any field of the arts you could feel the influence of post-1977 counter-culture. In very different ways, those voices were describing a generation unwilling to enter ‘capitalist’ adulthood and to finally become ‘bourgeois’. They were talking about virile friendship, human cowardice, disgust for the so called ‘return of the Private’ (or ‘Reflux’) of the 1980s.
