A young man follows every movement of another man. The protagonist is nervous, and he has an important mission. No spectator will guess what his true intentions are. Perhaps this is precisely why ‘I Catch you (Nightmare in Search of an Author)‘ is so interesting since its intelligent construction that opposes the imagery dynamism and the narrative mainstay in order to reveal the purpose of the characters and their inner conflicts is revealed only at the end. Thus, director Lorenzo Mannino builds an atypical thriller approaching a cinematic structure familiar to the general public, while developing an elusive subtext whose clarity is not really perceived by the viewer until the climax. As a result, the director assembles his own project in an elliptical and catchy manner, as if building a house starting from the roof, preserving at each narrative segment the implosive tension that successfully conceals the intentions of the characters and provoking the spectator to a permanent investigation regarding the hidden truth behind the action.
G. has a mission to accomplish, and the purpose of this mission is related to Mr. T.’s actions. The race against the clock has begun, and G. has only one day to achieve his goal.
It is difficult to say which dimension of this project has attracted us the most: the quality of the image, the dynamism of the editing or the narrative vortex that provides the viewer a deceptive key to reading. Or maybe the balanced combination of all of these. In fact, Lorenzo Mannino proves with this short film the maturity of his style, entering the category of the most promising directors we met at our festival, successfully creating a dynamic action starting from a more or less consistent narrative core. Thus, the talent with which he simultaneously captures alert segments from the external and internal reality of the characters, constructing a complex image in which the protagonist’s subjective projections about his own aspirations converge in a magnetic cinematography, makes ‘I Catch You’ an intelligent project that promises a director who can at any time approach the structural principles of a feature film.
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