The Portofino Mosh
Synopsis (English)

“The Portofino Mosh” is an animated short movie in form of a music clip. The narrative and the esthetics go beyond the scope of the genre music clip while trying to perform the function of a music clip, which is to ad value to a piece of music and the image of the performer in an entertaining way.

The easygoing Italo-English pop song “The Portofino Mosh” tells a silly story: the trip of two Italian guys going, or dreaming to go, to Portofino with their “motorino” (Italian for moped). Portofino is a legendary little town on the Mediterranean coast, where the beautiful and rich meet to see and bee seen. Obviously nobody would ever go there by “motorino”, but our two protagonists, “me and Gino”, do so, while chanting their mindless verses full of italo-stereotypes. In fact they never arrive (at least not before the song ends).

The clip does not only illustrate this funny trip, but takes it as a metaphor for life in a media driven world. Portofino stands for the place nobody ever arrives, because it is purely fictional. It is a symbol for the media images, which create the desire to be like these images (beautiful, rich, sexy, successful, cool, etc.). In the clip we see the two Italian loosers starting their trip. When they get on the highway we see through their eyes rushing by street signage and billboards. The billboards show samples from Italian television, while the signage gives directions. The billboards depict the ideal worlds of advisement and TV-shows, while the signs pointing straight forward keep you on track to Portofino. Other signs lead away from the highway, but you are to fast to get of the mainstream, even to fast to read the alternative directions. The signage is full of allusions to famous bits and pieces of the media universe – mainstream and “alternative” (persons, quotations and titles of stories, which stand for ether affirmative or critical attitudes).

The clip is a rough and dirty mix of different esthetics produced with various techniques; each one constructs a specific reality. The terribly wonderful media reality (TV samples), the silly, human and fucked up reality of our heroes (Super8), the holiday kitsch of Portofino (postcards) and most important the hard and fast reality of the mainstream highway (rough and handmade b/w-animation).
By the end the trip is getting more and more out of control. All realities mix up in an awfully euphoric climax, which suddenly ends. Did they transcend all realities, drop out or simply stop? 

Kris Krois
Munich, Germany, 14.10.2005