Venetian Carnevale:
The Greatest Masquerade
Archived video review
Note: Venetian Carnevale's Web site is no longer
active, and the video appears to be out of print. (The old Web link now points
to a "rock art murals" site, so we've removed it from this archived article.)
If
you want to buy the documentary, we'd suggest trying eBay or a site that sells
used videos.
Venetian Carnevale, a documentary by Jon-Beau Lee, is a 40-minute
tour of Venice's annual Carnival, with an
emphasis on costumes, masks, and miming.
The film opens with a dramatic shot of a small float that represents a book
with a gilded statue of the Winged Lion (Venice's official symbol) astride its
open pages. A costumed Carnevale participant shares the equisitely
crafted float as it rises and falls on the waves of St. Mark's Basin.
Next, we see a handful of TV news-style "man in the piazza" interviews with
foreign tourists who comment on the festivities. This is followed by slightly
more than half an hour of random street scenes from Carnevale--mostly
people miming or strolling in ornate Carnival costumes, with one scene of young
acrobats performing a circus routine for passersby.
Venetian Carnevale: The Greatest Masquerade is long on costumes and
short on narration. Still, it's a bargain at US $19.95, and we'd recommend it to
anyone who wants a souvenir of Carnevale or who's interested in costume
and masquerade. If you're thinking of bringing your own outfit to the
Carnevale di Venezia, Jon-Beau Lee's video will be a great source of ideas
and inspiration.
About the author:
Durant Imboden has
written about Venice, Italy since 1996.
He covered Venice and European travel at About.com for 4-1/2 years before launching
Europe for Visitors (including
Venice for Visitors) with Cheryl
Imboden in 2001.
PC Magazine has called this "the premier visitors'
site for Venice, Italy." Over the years, it has helped more than 30 million
travelers. For more information, see About our site,
our Europe for Visitors
press clippings,
and
our reader testimonials.
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