The Border vol. 5: That December Night, Review
Having finally in hand the new chapter of the series published under the Audace label, it can be safely said that the Masi-Uzzeo duo had every reason to be proud of Ceccotti's work. Il Confine Volume 5: That December night, in fact, enjoys a singular synergy between the essential aspects of what is told in the volume and what is represented by Ceccotti's table. The role of the cover artist is not an easy one, in charge of transmitting to the reader the curiosity to venture into the books without revealing too much of what is told inside.
Il Confine Volume 5: That December night, new mysteries and incredible revelations
In the case of Il Confine Volume 5: That December night, Ceccotti's work is to be appreciated because not only creates a stylistically sublime table, but manages to capture an essential aspect of the daily life of the protagonists of the fifth chapter of the saga: the missing boys. Thinking about it, it seems strange that only at the fifth volume we can delve into the lives of the absent protagonists of this series. Uzzeo and Masi have so far focused our attention on the present, on who has to investigate the disappearance (the tormented policewoman Laura Denti and the mysterious man of the woods Antoine Jacob) and who instead has to live with insecurity about the fate of their children. .An interesting choice that is well suited to the authors' desire to instill in readers a sense of anguish and growing tension, making them passionate about this land full of mysteries that sets the scene for Il Confine. Never denied by the duo, the passion for a certain television narrative led them to immerse ourselves in media res, hurling us into the thick of the events and giving us a series of inputs that would help us understand how in the mountain village where the tragedy took place there are secrets that emerge slowly. All this, making us almost forget that the fulcrum of the story comes to life from the disappearance of some boys. Even when the driver of the minibus on which the students were traveling at the time of the disappearance is found in anything but normal conditions, our gaze is directed towards the unreality of the situation, overshadowing the five boys, almost rendered silent victims hidden by 'something' greater than themselves.
What if their involvement is actually deeper? Il Confine Volume 5: That December night, in this sense, becomes a focal point of the series, both narratively and stylistically.
After having tickled our curiosity with a narrative that pays homage to procedural dramas in previous volumes, with the fifth chapter the register changes decisively, relying on a narration that reflects the adolescent world of the protagonists. An intent that is taken care of in every aspect, from the oral language of the children to the digital one, an essential component of today's teenagers.
It is no coincidence, therefore, that in the tables of Il Confine Volume 5: Quella notte di December, text messages and digital components of the adolescent dialectic are inserted. Almost like 2.0 captions, these inserts become a tool to give life to a story within the story, with which the authors let new clues emerge, in a fluid and real dialectic, made up of emoticons, jokes from companions and messages from conspirators, in which however the emotions and wounds of the soul of these children emerge.
If until now we have considered them as poor victims, thanks to the excruciating pain of the parents shown in the previous books, those dissonant sensations that we have felt in some situations are starting to take on more concreteness now that we get to know the missing children better. With an intelligent use of flashbacks, Uzzeo and Masi guide us to discover the small and big secrets of the boys, increasing the perception of a submerged world of sins and illicit relationships that begin to give a different vision of the history of Il Confine.
Telling the past of the missing children
The quartet made up of Luca, Benedetta, Aurora and Pierre goes from being a victim of a tragedy to becoming the fulcrum of a mystery that is intertwined with others that have already emerged , giving the feeling that the story hatched by Uzzeo and Masi is becoming more and more disturbing and exciting. New revelations, a disturbing discovery by investigator Laura Denti linked to a photo and unlawful agreements between the figures in sight of the town are the pieces of Il Confine Volume 5: That December night that enrich the genre picture of the story.A central chapter in the series that is also strengthened by the excellent work of Francesca Ciriega and Alessandro Giordano. It is up to them to find a synthesis between the whispered narration of the kids' secrets and the openness to the present moments of the investigations. The introduction of chats as a narrative tool pushes the two designers to develop interesting graphic solutions, in which an alternation between horizontal and vertical becomes the right means to give the story the right pathos, especially in the most morbid scenes.
Uzzeo and Masi did not neglect to tell the sexuality of these young adolescents and their way of living it, a choice that led Ciriega and Giordano to have to interpret it in an authentic, free way. The sex scenes portrayed are never vulgar, they represent different ways of offering oneself to the other, but above all they portray the bodies of the characters with naturalness and transport. Above all, the female bodies are treated with delicacy, are portrayed with abundance and do not fail to show different sensuality, inevitably linked to different ages, which are enhanced and characterized both in the physicality of the women portrayed and in the emotionality of their faces.
This attention to the characters by the two artists is an act of respect not only for the plot of Il Confine, but also for the protagonists themselves. A dedication that is enhanced by the coloring of Alessia Pastorello, who interprets the dogmas of the series coloring interpreting them with personality and chromatic sensitivity. In a volume in which the graphic story has, perhaps, a more marked relevance than the previous chapters, the work of Ciriega, Giordano and Pastorello becomes fundamental, it requires an impeccable synergy that allows the reader to get excited, understand and experience the emotions of these boys. And at the end of the reading, the commitment of this artistic trio reveals itself in all its passion, finally giving us a more intimate vision of the four young people.
Returning to the cover, Ceccotti has hit the mark in rendering his design a mirror of the life of these kids. A shot from social media, ideally stolen from one of the many stories with which today's young people converse, in which only one face is recognizable, in its wasted beauty and another identity is revealed by a tag .. And as often happens with Il Confine, after admiring the work of Ceccotti we pay attention to the details, to the unspoken of the authors which, however, leaks and reveals itself to attentive glances.
Il Confine Volume 5: That December night again demonstrates how this series by Sergio Bonelli Editore is a reading that is both high and light, made up of intertwining and ties that risk being revealed as the intensity of an explosion when our brain makes the right connections. The feeling reading Il Confine Volume 5: That December night is to begin to perceive something of the mysteries behind this story, but at the same time we understand how the truth is deeper and more disturbing, leaving us the curiosity and the anxiety to discover the other details that help us to solve this mystery.
