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“From the God to the Beast” (“Dal Dio alla Bestia”): online
“From the God to the Beast” is available from YouTube, sasartiglia.com and Olzaiturismo.info
The enchanting Olzai, a small Sardinian town in the heart of Barbagia, has been chosen for the short film “Dal Dio alla Bestia” (“From the God to the Beast”), available from sasartiglia.com, YouTube (here) and olzaiturismo.info. The directors are Nicola Marongiu and Cinzia Carrus (already authors and directors of the documentary “Sardegna Tempio delle Acque”). “From the God to the Beast” is a work documenting the ritual dressing and the typical attitude of the traditional Sardinian masks from Olzai, called “Sos Murronarzos”: these characters still perform their fascinating ritual at carnival time and also on the occasion of special events. As it’s seen on many Sardinian traditional characters (specially in Barbagia), we can observe the dynamic between Cosmos and Chaos, a recurring theme in almost every ancient culture.
Encounter and Conflict: the God, the Beast, the Man, the Omnipotence.
The echo of mysterious transmutations, through the gestures of three figures, seems to go beyond any sophisticated, yet gross, human scheme.
“Sos Murronarzos” recall the ancient concept of the Goddess-God of Nature in her/his effigy of “Pig”. But it can be noted that, in the rites we can still found today, the role of the pig has changed, it has been reversed becoming a source of danger, a threat: the “beast” is tamed, dominated, whipped and tied up. The dynamic between the captor and the victim can be found in the other carnival rites involving zoomorphic figures dominated by anthropomorphic figures, characterized by the clumsy attempts of the “beasts” to escape and to attack everyone around them.
Here you can download the presentation: “From the God to the Beast” pdf
Here you can find the “making of” “From the God to the Beast”, with the detailed images of Sos Murronarzos and their features:
