Review

Il paese dei coppoloni

It’s a book which has been pouring down drops of history, anthropology and ancient truths for a long time. “Il paese dei coppoloni” (The village of Coppoloni), published by Feltrinelli, is a work by Vinicio Capossela, a great interpreter of author music, a modern troubadour from the South with a heart rooted in Germany. His original family come from Calatri in Irpinia, Capossela grew up in Germany then he settled in Emilia when his family came back to Italy. This artist’s book can be related to the cinema since it’s the story of a journey through a culture and a village which also became a quite good product for the movie industry. “Il paese dei coppoloni” became a movie as well. It’s a documentary about the traditions and the ancient rituals. Cairano is the village that has always been called “dei coppoloni”. But it’s not just Cairano. There’s a lot of Irpinia in these pages and in the movie (this full-length film is directed by Stefano Obino). Why “coppoloni”? Maybe because the inhabitants are sheltered by their coppole (the typical hats from the South of Italy) or because they are invaded by the clouds that are seen as “hoods” in the sky, who knows. Fact is that this novel and this movie are worth the journey to Cairano, a charming tiny village. A village which will welcome you with open arms and beyond any rhetorical cult of sketches, you’ll spontaneously indulge at emotions, at this inhabited loneliness, at this experienced detachment. You may think they are evident contradictions. Yes, they are since the departure represents a common destiny that becomes an indispensable shared history. On the other hand, the loneliness of the ones who have stubbornly decided to stay is filled with the curiosity of the wanderers and the travellers. Then there’s the experienced departure. If you leave you’ll come back sooner or later. Not only in Summer or on holidays. This land keeps singing thanks to Capossela. His long-playing is called “Le canzoni della cupa”, a work that is so much related to the magic of the ancestral Irpinia. The same goes for this book which is so linked to such a far-distant land that it still has a lot of things to tell.