“American Licorice” by William Stancik

“American Licorice” expands the disturbing artistic vision of William Stancik, an author whom we have already appreciated in the past. Stancik has now codified a peculiar, extremely personal and visionary cinematographic genre, which attracts the viewer as an extraneous dimension, which reverses reality and yet deeply touches some universal truth. The stories narrated by Stancik are in fact surprisingly human. The mystery, the riddle and the reworking of childhood trauma are translated into “American Licorice” in extemporaneous symbols. It seems that the whole art of Stancik, in its most grotesque heights, is deeply connected to the knowledge of pain, to a personal understanding of life, in its most hostile aspects.

The staging of the entire film is marked by a contrast between the real and the fake. The faces of the protagonists are closely observed and behind them false scenes convey a sense of alienation that contrasts with the naturalness of the faces. The sound choices and the editing choices contribute to this aesthetic system, in a continuous process of “anti-truth”. But the film is never just the mere representation of a fantasy: the script and the words have a revealing function, capable of giving depth and meaning to the images. “American Licorice” is a film destined to be remembered for its uniqueness and for the freshness of the experimental language, which make it a work of true postmodern cinema.