Myth and Mercury

Directed by Rosa Barba

On one hand, intergalactic particles or grains meeting a community’s fireworks—the explosions’ lights–momentary glows against the night sky. On the other hand, extracts from Gramsci’s life in prison, memories of a revolutionary thinker as he approaches death, alongside the inner workings of the planet, bubbling scenes, and volcanic land. While the film’s pace is slow, its stories carry millions of years, myths, stellar imagery, high-tech machinery, and also realities of life, especially in Sicily. Myth and Mercury’s ending segment offering a vision of scientific futures comes all of a sudden. Ultra-high energy neutrino detected in the Mediterranean, it has been declared. Records have been broken. Pulverised, even.