The 883 series isn’t just a nostalgia operation
“They Killed Spider-Man – The legendary story of the 883” immediately finds the right angle to immerse the viewer in the story it tells. It does so by surprising us with an initial scene that takes us to 1895, in front of a failed boy condemned by his rigorous and affectionless father to exile, as punishment, in the terrible Pavia.
Only at the end of the pilot episode will we understand the relevance of that episode within the series, curated by the Rover-Sybilia duo, visible on Sky (and its streaming platforms SkyGo and Now) from 11 October. The connection with the young Massimo Pezzali (Elia Nuzzolo), a teenager from Pavia whose social life and summer holidays are irremediably compromised by school failure, a century later the mysterious protagonist of the incipit. A little neurotic, very know-it-all, always on the verge of being hopelessly unlucky, the future Max narrates his misfortunes as a very long sequence of events that lead him to wanting to write a song after being “wanked” by music. They have to do with a Ramones cassette forgotten by the previous owner in the cassette player of a smelly van, the discovery of punk, a beautiful bored girl halfway between the angel of “You’re a myth” and the devil of “Te la tira”, a broken heart and an electric guitar “on loan”, without the owner’s military service knowing.
The story of Massimo, forced by his parents to help with the work at the family flower shop and to remain in the much-hated Pavia for the whole summer, follows two tracks: that of events and that of voice-over of the Max of the present and future, which punctuates the small and large misfortunes that afflict the past and present self.
The pace, in the first two episodes that we saw in preview, is sustained, the frame always on this side of nostalgia, punctuated by the Lombard youth jargon of the time. Massimo’s classroom is an expanse of Invicta backpacks, Pavia is an anonymous provincial city where he can’t find the vinyl records of the punk band he loves, a place where people die rather than face another summer of boredom. He knows this well, forced to attend many funerals every day, as a wreath attendant.
The one woven by the Greenland dream team to the script of “They Killed Spider-Man” is a very clever but effective provincial tale, which with the exasperated and slightly acidic approach of Pezzali’s voice dilutes the nostalgia effect towards an Italian Arcadia. An Italy of the 90s made of Ciao scooters, cultural and social meeting places for everyone, a fairly wealthy reality in which even the youngest, despite the theme song, have a deca or more in their pocket and can go out to have a beer, go to the beach with friends, enjoy your youth without too many oppressive thoughts.
Pavia in 1989 is the place to be, even if no one knows it. Not even a young lawyer named Maria De Filippi, who is besieged by a Roman admirer who sends her flowers every day. It is she who shows Massimo a VHS “which is very popular among the kids in Milan”, with the NWA video who gives the boy the last piece, freeing him from the yoke of the score of “Gianna” worn out by his attempts to learn to play the electric guitar in a handful of weeks.
Maria De Filippi who, surrounded by red roses sent daily by her “Roman admirer” makes you discover “Straight Outta Compton”, what could be more legendary? After punk, Massimo arrives by chance at hip hop, which reveals to him how you can make music without the need to play an instrument. At the end of the episode comes that “so much” that is missing from the story: .Mauro Repetto, played by Oscar Giuggioli (the most guessed member of the cast).
If the first episode convinces, the second, focused on Mauro’s volcanic and contradictory personality, is explosive. I am forty magical minutes in which the coming of age of Pezzali and, within 24 hours, a friendship is born that is destined to become, from the title, legendary. Repetto takes his classmate he just met up and down the Pavia area, scrounging rides on his scooter, trying to intercept a famous American DJ to make him listen to his mixtape.
In the first two episodes of “They Killed Spider-Man” there is no music by 883, apart from “Con un deca”, a 1992 hit by the group that accompanies the theme song. Yet the group’s music is already all there, on the margins, in random episodes in which we already hear the passages of the lyrics that a generation or more memorize, after having consumed them in their youth on cassettes like the one, fatal, which changes one’s life. in Pezzali.
In the diptych of episodes directed by Sydney Sibilia there is not only the beginning, but also the end, as in all great stories. The story of the young Mauro, who is always missing something indefinable to find his true talent, already contains all the dissatisfaction and insecurity that will make the duo explode, in the end. Massimo, on the other hand, has pure talent but the inability to focus on important things and people, the right instincts (“Max” is the nickname that Mauro gives him 30 seconds after meeting him, yet he doesn’t understand his potential for long time), giving in instead to the wrong ones.
Whether it collaborates with Sky Italia, Netflix or moves alone, Greenlandia is practically a guarantee in the commercial sector and not in Italy, capable of describing the feel of lost eras that have shaped our present,as happened with “The Island of Roses” and with “Mixed by Erry”. This time both founders take the field – Rovere and Sybilia – together with a Sky that spares no resources. The commitment made in “They Killed Spider-Man – The legendary story of the 883” is evident, starting from a very successful casting for the two protagonists, passing through a very vivid, material reconstruction of Pavia and those years.
There is an underlying involvement and passion in this project: both are contagious. Two episodes are too few to evaluate the stability of the series in its more advanced stages, to understand if will be able to maintain this balance of nostalgia and disenchantment, without getting bogged down in rhetoric recurring in the parable of “A Star Is Born,” the rise and fall, the sins of pride and the blinding power of sudden fame.
For the moment however, carried away by a fast pace, a fluid and amused approach and by the chemistry of the exchanges between Nuzzolo and Giuggioli (irresistible in the second episode) “They Killed Spider-Man – The legendary story of the 883” is accredited as a bet won, which arrives at the right time. Before 883 are History with a capital S, but with enough years behind them to avoid both a certain air of superiority compared to the strange pop phenomenon from Pavia that overwhelmed Italian music in the 90s, and the suffocating grip of nostalgia.
It is a series in which once again Rovere and Sybilia they take a “strange Italian story” and make it an emblem of what constitutes the Italian spirit, for better or for worse. On the musical front, however, it is more than transversal, just like 883: it is perfect for those who were there in those years – as parents tormented by their children’s cassette tapes, as fans or denier of the Pezzali/Repetto duo – and for those who will discover the band with this series, or is attracted to it for its “irresistible vintage charm”.
“They Killed Spider-Man – The legendary story of the 883” will be available on Sky and NOW starting from 11 October 2024
