The Border 7: Who is not afraid ?, secrets and revelations

The Border 7

A title is more than a simple key to understanding a story in the best possible way. The Border: Who is not afraid? , the seventh chapter of the Bonelli saga created by Mauro Uzzeo and Giovanni Masi, wants to be the confirmation of this axiom, it is not only a perfect embodiment, but transforms it into a backbone of the events of this episode. Within a plot like that of Il Confine, to be honest, fear is a constant, but it is not that horror movie panic based on the bloody spectacle of horror, it is a scratchy note in the background, meandering and patient, which he takes every moment necessary to poison the soul of the protagonists.

Not only of the victims or their relatives, but of every actor in this tragedy. Because fear is a personal sensation, everyone experiences it in their own way, between those who suffer it and those who are guided by it, to the point of making fatal mistakes. In Il Confine: Who is not afraid? it is this presence that becomes the engine of a series of apparently minor events, compared to the horizontal plot of the series, but which from a human point of view are important signals for understanding scraps of truth hidden in the life of this community with a troubled past. A promise kept, we can say it with confidence, given that Uzzeo and Masi, during an interview, had confided to us their passion for the narrative of masters like Lynch, of which they prove not only to have grasped the narrative taste, but to have understood it. also the visual dogmas, reworking them according to their own, personal style.

Il Confine: Who is not afraid? , the truth is a curse

Playing on a subtle narrative thread like that of the Border is certainly not easy. Detective story or paranormal thriller? Inhuman horror or human ferocity? The border, nomen omen, is everything in this case, neither or both. The Border: Who is not afraid? is the quintessence of the complexity of having to manage these different traits of the story, which from the story of a tragedy with a group of innocent children at the center has gradually opened up to a more complex story, tinged with different shades, capable of passing with apparent ease from the realism of youthful attitudes, portrayed with a spectacular and raw everyday life in the fifth volume That December night, to the construction of one's own folklore, central to the events underlying the saga.

Who is not afraid? it interprets these assumptions, collects them to become the voice of a narrative and social context that begins to bring out its own nature, going beyond the small hypocrisies that have acted as a counterpoint to the plot of Uzzeo and Masi. The discovery of the bodies of the boys, an event that could conclude Laura Denti's investigation and give answers to the desperate parents, on the contrary becomes a dissonant element, it is no longer a harrowing end of the drama for the families, but is looming as yet another enigma of an unfathomable mystery. Central, in this perspective, is the contrast between Denti and her boss, two different points of view that arrive at an irremediable contrast during a press conference in which the palpable climate of distrust between institutions and the population is not long in showing itself again.

To give the rhythm to this chapter of the Border is not only fear, the driving force of sudden reactions and the lever on which still unknown actors operate, but also the supernatural, an element on which the two authors have built a whole folklore for their mountain village. The peculiarity of Il Confine is having used this aspect as a vital spark of a hybrid religion, celebrated in places usually associated with religious celebration that become altars of a local, secret creed whose dogmas are jealously guarded. A religion that has its own rules, with its contrasts and that has its roots in the past of the village, as seen in the previous chapters.

You don't pay to have set this complex mechanism in motion, Uzzeo and Masi create a second type of faith, the one that animates Antoine, his relationship with nature. If in the previous episodes this affinity was considered a peculiarity on the investigative level to find the missing boys, in Il Confine: Who is not afraid? arouses a different, vibrant sensation. It is difficult not to find a synergy between Antoine's belief that the events in progress have already injured the nature of the place and the image of the snow-capped mountain on which three furrows stand out, like a feral claw that is a physical manifestation of the suffering of local nature.

A central chapter in the series

Reading The Border: Who is not afraid? reconfirms the complex dialectic of Uzzeo and Masi's narrative, which make the languages ​​of different genres their own, such as thriller and supernatural tale, giving life to a new narrative dimension that is a pure and cohesive synthesis, enveloping the reader in a unique atmosphere and unmistakable. Also thanks to an artistic cast capable of interpreting the complex dynamics hatched by the two authors, who for Il Confine: Who is not afraid? shows the talent of Emanuele Contarini and Bruno Cannucciari, at work in one of the most intense moments of the series.

The two designers capture the emotional tensions of the characters with an impeccable visual story, made up of revealing expressions and postures that they exasperate the interiority of these souls oppressed by the situation, enhancing small gestural charms or relying on everyday poses. In Il Confine, body language has always been used with particular attention as a mirror of a complex and authentic vitality, a custom that Cannucciari and Contarini preserve in their tables, capturing the characters in their naturalness.

Centrale, for example. , the moment of domestic sincerity in which a family thanks for not being among those mourning a disappearance, giving life to a visual sequence that, if deprived of the balloons that convey the words of the characters, would maintain its emotional power thanks to the perfect portrait of the postures of this family. A visual system embellished by the coloring of Adele Matera, which envelops the tables by Cannucciari and Contarini with a chromatic enhancement that enhances the emotional context of the drawings, expanding the synergy of all the narrative components of Il Confine.

Come per the previous volumes, also in Il Confine: Who is not afraid? we have an impeccable editorial care, which, following a tradition borrowed from television series, presents us with a recap and an anticipation through some cartoons. Particularly welcome is the familiar extras compartment, which allows you to ideally assist in the creative process of a complex and nuanced series. The only flaw of Il Confine is the timing of release, expanded in recent times due to various contingencies, which leads to a re-reading of the previous volumes to be sure not to miss any detail of a series with unique tones and great charm.