Blackout: this is how Rai1 tries (and dominates) the disaster movie road

After contemplating the unchanging charm of the mountain thanks to the wonderful The eight mountains with Borghi and Marinelli, Rai1 shows us the other side of the coini.e. a cold, hostile and dangerous mountain, capable of generating isolation and terror. Blackout – Suspended lives, the new fiction co-produced by Rai Fiction and Èliseo Entertainment with the participation of Viola Film and the collaboration of the Trentino Film Commission, starts from a very common picture: from a group of tourists and families who spend the Christmas week in the mountains, more precisely in the Vanoi Valley, having fun on the slopes and instagramming as much as I can. An earthquake, however, causes an avalanche to detach and engulfs the only hotel in the area and its neighboring areas profoundly changing the lives of several strangers who, in order to survive, are forced to collaborate and stay close to each other, even if it won’t be as simple as we think.

Among the surviving protagonists of Blackouts in fact, secrets and mysteries lurk under the skin and that fear and anger will bring out in all their thunderous destructiveness. We soon discover, in fact, that John (Alexander Preciousin great dust after the excellent performance of it The lying life of adults) is not a simple father on holiday with his two children, Riccardo and Elena, but a man who has never closed his ties with the underworld to the point of reaching the Vanoi Valley to kill Claudia (Rike Schmid), head of emergency surgery subjected to a witness protection program while awaiting trial which sees her as the only eyewitness to a murder by the Camorra at the hands of a ruthless boss who is none other than Giovanni’s brother. It goes without saying that the plot of Blackouts will certainly not make the task easy for him, given that Claudia is the only doctor in the group who takes refuge in the hotel and she is the only one who has the power to save both her daughter Martina, who fell following the avalanche detachment while was skiing hitting his head, that his son Riccardo (Federico Russo), who risked hypothermia to rescue young Anita (Ju Ju Di Domenico), daughter of Claudia.

Among Blackoutshowever, there are many other subplots: that of Marco (Marco Rossettialready appreciated in the second season of DOC – In your hands and in the delicious I hate Christmas), Claudia’s ex-husband eager to take his daughter with him, thus snatching her from the witness protection program; that of Lidia (the very good one Aurora Ruffinus), pinned by the Carabinieri who, after the marshal’s death, is the only representative of the forces of order in the Valley, ready to confront a mystery hidden with great skill by Karim (Mickaël Lumière), the hotel bartender; and Lorenzo (the great Riccardo Maria Manera that we hadn’t seen since that little gem of I wanted to be a rock star 2), son of hoteliers who offer to host the survivors of the disaster even though they too seem to keep more than one secret. Leaving aside the rather kitschy scene of the computerized deer killing itself in front of the hotel after losing its mate during a hunting trip, Blackout – Suspended lives is an excellent product that demonstrates Rai’s mastery of a very risky and very American genre like the disaster movie: the isolation of the telephones and the forced coexistence described very well by the screenwriters Michelangelo La Neve, Valerio D’Annunzio, Andrea Valagussa, Peppe Millanta and Michela Straniero and captured by the skilful direction of Richard Woman they keep the tension high until the end, letting the spectator be dragged by this snowy perimeter where, between spades, sniper rifles and anaphylactic shock lurking, anything can happen.

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