Peripheral Aesthetics in Contemporary Italian Cinema: Dogman and La Terra dell’Abbastanza

Two Italian films, 'La Terra dell’Abbastanza' by Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo and 'Dogman' by Matteo Garrone, explore themes of peripheral existence and moral decay. Both premiered internationally—the former at the Berlinale, the latter at Cannes. 'La Terra dell’Abbastanza' follows Mirko and Manolo, played by Matteo Olivetti and Andrea Carpenzano, as an extraordinary event forces them to choose between a life of 'enough' and one of dangerous abundance. The film updates the Faustian bargain with glocal elements, from smartphones to endless suburbs. The D’Innocenzo twins, born in Tor Bella Monaca, use Roman dialect almost as a foreign language. Garrone, their mentor, collaborated on the 'Dogman' screenplay. 'Dogman' focuses on instinct and aggression, visualized through a memorable gallery of dogs, echoing works like Pierre Huyghe's 'Untilled' at Documenta13. Marcello (Marcello Fonte) and Simoncino (Edoardo Pesce) see their friendship disrupted by a latent dark side. Both films depict a miserable humanity against white suburban skies, reminiscent of Andrea Pazienza's Pompeo. They lack spatiotemporal anchors, using periphery as a symbolic form—a desolate urban far west. The directors channel neorealist imagery but replace physical rubble with moral decay. While Sorrentino sings the 'Great Beauty,' Garrone and the D’Innocenzos narrate the aftermath through essential emptiness, revealing the sublime flipside of the periphery.