Mediolanum (1933)

For Mediolanum, his second documentary, Ubaldo Magnaghi, co-founder in 1930 of the Milan Cine-Club (soon to become Cineguf, with Francesco Pasinetti’s Venice club), was commissioned by Agfa, then one of Europe’s biggest film manufacturers, probably to demonstrate the quality and superiority of reversible film, which remained unique after exposure and standardized developing. In Mediolanum Magnaghi sought the abstract. He isolated strong, essential architectural features without needing to recompose them in descriptions but making a show of them in temporal, desired luminous contrast. He provoked abstraction with rapid panoramas, but above all with bold, as well as oblique, camera positions. He was more redundant than Ivens or Vigo, perhaps without knowing their work. But he was attentive above all to form, since the human figure is always present in the background. The result is a real harmonic symphony of luminous contrasts, which are also fragmented glimpses of a great city.